Cooking verbs and the cultural conceptualization of cooking processes in
Japanese
This chapter provides a semantic analysis of Japanese cooking
verbs in comparison with English counterparts. It will be shown that some of
the semantic components that are lexicalized (or incorporated) to form a
verb’s meaning reflects a cultural conceptualization of food preparation.
Building upon Lehrer’s (1972)
analysis of Japanese cooking verbs but further revising it, the chapter will
showcase relevant aspects of a culturally constructed conceptualization of
food preparation reflected in the Japanese language. Interestingly, a
comparison between Japanese and English appears to show a relatively meager
inventory of cooking verbs in Japanese. However, while Japanese may have a
more limited number of cooking verbs in which semantic components are
lexicalized, the language makes available other linguistic means such as use
of mimetics and compounding that detail the cooking process. These
additional mechanisms help maintain the broad range of fine-grained
descriptions pertinent to the cooking process, while simultaneously
preserving a culturally constructed conceptualization of food
preparation.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Analysis of cooking verbs in Japanese
- 2.1Componential analysis
- 2.2Revised lexical organization of Japanese cooking verbs
- 3.Cultural conceptualization and linguistic tools
- 4.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
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