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Linguistic Synesthesia in Korean: Universality and Variation

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  • Charmhun Jo

Abstract

It has long been argued that linguistic synesthesia has a universal linear-hierarchical directionality tendency, which is mostly grounded in Indo-European language data. This study explores linguistic synesthesia in Korean to verify the cross-linguistic generalizability of the universality hypothesis of linguistic synesthesia. Based on synesthetic data from the Sejong Corpus and gustatory adjectives, this study found that Korean synesthesia shows language-bound variations with three different types of mappings (i.e., unidirectional, reciprocal, and biased), which are frequency- and rule-based. This finding challenges the cross-linguistic universality of the mapping directionality of linguistic synesthesia. As for the mapping mechanism of linguistic synesthesia, this study supports the embodiment theory in terms of language-specific variation. Additionally, it has been proposed that linguistic synesthesia is a special type of metaphor based on both rules and frequency. Finally, this study suggests that linguistic synesthesia displays universal directionality at a general level and language-bound variation at a specific level.

Suggested Citation

  • Charmhun Jo, 2022. "Linguistic Synesthesia in Korean: Universality and Variation," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:12:y:2022:i:3:p:21582440221117804
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440221117804
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