Peculiarities of Genesis and Functioning of the Synaesthetic Metaphor in Reviews of Ukrainian Dishes and Food (Based on YouTube Videos of English-speaking Bloggers).

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the synaesthetic metaphor peculiarities, i. e. its genesis and functioning within the conversational English-speaking Internet discourse. The synaesthetic metaphor is viewed as a result of synaesthesia which on the level of perception influences the inventory of the language means involved by the speaker. The object of the present study is the synaesthetic metaphor which finds its expression in the English-speaking Internet discourse, the subject of the research is the peculiarities of the synaesthetic metaphor genesis and functioning. The source of the investigated empirical material are video reviews of Ukrainian dishes and food given by English-speaking American, British, and Canadian bloggers (overall duration of 7 hours 47 minutes 33 seconds) uploaded onto YouTube video-sharing platform. Application of the continuous sampling method, componential analysis, descriptive and quantitative methods allow to single out 37 samples (47 uses in speech) of the synaesthetic metaphor, outline patterns of synaesthetic transfers and determine their productivity. The most productive pattern of the synaesthetic transfers singled out is the model “look –> touch”, less productive are the model “taste –> touch”, “taste –> appearance”, and “sound –> touch”. The least productive patterns of the synaesthetic metaphoric transfers are “taste –> smell”, “smell –> taste”, “smell –> touch”, “touch –> look”, and “look –> taste”. Apart from this, as a result of the synaesthetic transfers directions analysis, the place of contact and distant receptors in the process of perceptual information transmission is determined, where the sensory area of the touch acts as the most frequent source of perceptual features transmission, while the areas of visual and taste perceptions function in most cases as sensory sensation recipients.