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Part of
The Language of Food in Japanese: Cognitive perspectives and beyond
Edited by Kiyoko Toratani
[Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 25] 2022
► pp. 55–77

Chapter 2
Analysis of the use of Japanese mimetics in the eating and imagined eating of rice crackers

| Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
| Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University
| Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
| Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University
This chapter explores how Japanese mimetics are used to verbally express the texture of rice crackers in real and imagined cases. Two experiments were conducted to test whether the use of mimetics varies when eating rice crackers as opposed to merely imagining eating rice crackers. The analysis of the mimetics used to express the physically perceived texture and the imagined texture of the rice crackers shows that these two situations may have different prototypes of rice crackers. This study suggests that the degree of iconicity of the same mimetics can vary according to the contexts in which they are used.
Keywords: cognitive linguistics, iconicity, prototype, food texture, cultural knowledge
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Japanese rice crackers
    • 2.2Mimetics and Iconicity
    • 2.3Previous research on food and language
    • 2.4Hypothesis and goals of the study
  • 3.Experiments
    • 3.1Preliminary survey: Familiarity with different types of rice crackers
      • 3.1.1Method
      • 3.1.2Results
    • 3.2Experiment 1: Mimetics for actually eating rice crackers
      • 3.2.1Materials
      • 3.2.2Method
      • 3.2.3Results
    • 3.3Experiment 2: Mimetics for imagined rice crackers
      • 3.3.1Materials
      • 3.3.2Method
      • 3.3.3Results
    • 3.4Comparing the results
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
    • 4.1Degrees of iconicity
    • 4.2Implications for linguistics studies
    • 4.3Suggestions for future studies
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 9 February 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.25.02uno
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2023. Psychoacoustic Study of Japanese Mimetics for Food Textures. In Advances in Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing [Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, 339], ► pp. 415 ff. DOI logo

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