The Role(s) of Metaphor in Olfactory Language: A Corpus-Led Semantic Analysis

在英语词汇中，直接嗅觉的词汇非常有限，所以说话者必须使用其他语言领域的词汇来准确描述他们的感官体验（如丰富的、绿色的、甜的、响亮的、成熟的等）。这个博士学位将研究说英语的人如何交流这些经历，特别关注隐喻的使用。它的核心是探讨嗅觉体验领域的英语词汇和语义结构。从语义的角度来看，这一点还没有得到充分的研究，这里提出的彻底分析将有助于更全面地理解感官是如何在语言中表达的，以及说话者如何寻求交流感官体验，这些体验不能直接共享，必须通过语言来调解。这可以分解为三个相关的子问题：哪些语义域是与气味相关的感官隐喻的主要来源，它们在什么上下文中使用？说话者对隐喻领域的选择可以让我们了解他们的文化优先级，而使用这些隐喻的语境揭示了说话者对这些领域的态度。这些隐喻在语篇中的使用有哪些明显的模式？我将研究上下文如何改变说话者对隐喻的选择——例如，在日常对话和更“专业”的用途（如商业广告）之间，隐喻的使用是否有区别？通过理解这些模式，我们可以根据人们交流背后的原因和动机，构建一幅人们如何通过物理和时间距离交流感官体验的图景。随着时间的推移，这些模式是否发生了变化？与过去相比，我们今天使用的感官隐喻有何不同？调查这个问题将使我们了解说话者在使用不同的类比时，他们的优先级是如何变化的，以及对不同语义域的态度是如何随着时间而变化的。

Direct olfactory vocabulary is severely limited in the English lexicon, so speakers must use words from other areas of the language to accurately describe their sensory experiences (such as rich, green, sweet, loud, mature, etc). This PhD will investigate how English speakers communicate these experiences, with a particular focus on the use of metaphor. At heart, it addresses what the lexical and semantic structure is in English of the domain of olfactive experience. This is understudied from a semantic perspective, and a thorough analysis as proposed here would contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of how the senses are expressed in language and how speakers seek to communicate sensory experiences, which cannot be directly shared and must be mediated by language. This breaks down into three linked sub-questions:Which semantic domains are the major sources of sensory metaphors relating to smell, and in what contexts are they used? Speakers' choice of metaphorical domain allows us to understand their cultural priorities, and the context in which those metaphors are used reveals speakers' attitudes towards those domains. What patterns are visible in how these metaphors are used in discourse? I will investigate how context changes the choice of metaphor a speaker might make- for example, is there a difference in metaphor use between everyday conversation and more 'professional' uses, like commercial advertisement? By understanding these patterns, we can build a picture of how people communicate their sensory experiences through physical and temporal distance according to the reasons and motivations behind their communication.Have these patterns changed over time, and how are the sensory metaphors we use today different compared to those used in the past? Investigating this question will allow us to understand how speakers' priorities have changed as they reach for different analogies, and how attitudes towards various semantic domains have changed over time.