Cover not available
Part of
The Linguistics of Olfaction: Typological and Diachronic Approaches to Synchronic Diversity
Edited by Łukasz Jędrzejowski and Przemysław Staniewski
[Typological Studies in Language 131] 2021
► pp. 35–72

Why is smell special?

A case study of a European language: Swedish

| Uppsala University
Recent typological studies have described a number of languages with a rich inventory of abstract odor terms, which stand in stark contrast to Swedish and other European languages that are considered to have poor systems of such terms. However, there have been few thorough descriptions of the odor terms of any European language. This chapter presents a detailed corpus-based description of the noun lukt ‘smell’ and the verbs lukta ‘to smell’, stinka ‘to stink’, dofta ‘to smell good’ and osa ‘to smell of burnt fat’. In addition to the description of the lexico-grammatical structure, there is a detailed discussion of the way odor is talked about in Swedish based on word sketches. Unlike colors, which are treated as objective properties of physical objects, odors are often talked about as sensations that evoke affective reactions in humans. Odors are also often talked about as characteristic features of whole situations. The chapter ends with a discussion of what it is that makes smell special with respect to the other senses.
Keywords: lexical semantics, lexical typology, perception verbs, olfaction, Swedish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Verbs of perception
    • 1.2Phenomenon-based sensory words
  • 2.The neurophysiology and psychology of smell
  • 3.Olfaction and language: State of the art
  • 4.The semantic field of smell in Swedish
    • 4.1The basic structure
    • 4.2Conceptualization of smell as a moving entity
    • 4.3Towards a formalized model
  • 5.Quantitative overview
  • 6.Metaphorical and other extended uses
  • 7.Talking about odors in Swedish
    • 7.1What odors are talked about
    • 7.2What situations are commented on by using an odor verb?
    • 7.3The noun lukt ‘odor’
  • 8.Why then is smell special?
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Electronic sources
  • References
Published online: 26 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.131.02vib
References (60)
Electronic sources
ESPC: The English Swedish Parallel Corpus <[URL]> (1 July 2016).
KORP: <[URL]> (15 May 2017).
OED: Oxford English Dictionary. <[URL]> (15 May 2017).
FrameNet: <[URL]> (15 May 2017).
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. & Storch, Anne (eds). 2013. Perception and Cognition in Language and Culture [Brill’s Studies in Language, Cognition and Culture 3]. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Altenberg, Bengt & Aijmer, Karin. 2000. The English-Swedish Parallel Corpus: A resource for contrastive research and translation studies. In Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory: Papers from the Twentieth International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora (ICAME 20), Freiburg im Breisgau [Language and Computers 33],Christian Mair & Marianne Hundt (eds), 15–23. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Berlin, Brent. 1978. Ethnobiological classification. In Cognition and Categorization, Eleanor Rosch & Barbara B. Lloyd (eds), 9–26. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Biggam, Carole P. 2012. The Semantics of Colour. A Historical Approach. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bjorvand, Harald & Lindeman, Fredrik Otto. 2000. Våre arveord. Etymologisk ordbok (Our Inherited Words. Etymological Dictionary). Oslo: Novus forlag.Google Scholar
Boisson, Claude. 1997. La dénomination des odeurs: Variations et régularités linguistiques. Intellectica 24(1): 29–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Borin, Lars, Forsberg, Magnus & Roxendal, Johan. 2012. Korp – The corpus infrastructure of Språkbanken. <[URL]> (9 April 2018).
Brown, Cecil. 1985. Mode of subsistence and folk biological taxonomy. Current Anthropology 6(1): 43–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Classen, Constance. 1993. Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 2005. McLuhan in the rainforest. The sensory worlds of oral cultures. In Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader, David Howes (ed.), 147–163. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Classen, Constance, Howes, David & Synnott, Anthony. 1994. Aroma. The Cultural History of Smell. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Delon-Martin, Chantal, Plailly, Jane, Fonlupt, Pierre, Veyrac, Alexandra & Royet, Jean-Pierre. 2013. Perfumers’ expertise induces structural reorganization in olfactory brain regions. NeuroImage 68(1): 55–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Demolin, Didier, Traill, Anthony, Sicard, Gilles, & Hombert, Jean-Marie. 2016. Odour terminology in !Xóõ. In Lone Tree – Scholarship in the Service of the Koon. Essays in Memory of Anthony T Traill, Rainer Voßen & Wilfrid H.G. Haacke (eds), 107–118. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Dubois, Danièle. 2000. Categories as acts of meaning: The case of categories in olfaction and audition. Cognitive Science Quarterly 1: 35–68.Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas M. & Wilkins, David. 2000. In the mind’s ear: The semantic extension of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76(3): 546–592. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Floyd, Simeon, San Roque, Lila & Majid, Asifa. 2018. Smell is coded in grammar and frequent in discourse: Cha’palaa olfactory language in cross-linguistic perspective. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 28(2): 175–196. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, E. Bruce. 2014. Sensation and Perception, 9th edn. Belmont CA: Cengage Learning.Google Scholar
Hammarberg, Björn & Viberg, Åke. 1977. The place-holder constraint, language typology, and the teaching of Swedish to immigrants. Studia Linguistica XXXI : 106–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Howes, David (ed.). 2005. Empire of the Senses. The Sensual Culture Reader. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Huumo, Tuomas. 2010. Is perception a directional relationship? On directionality and its motivation in Finnish expressions of sensory perception. Linguistics 48(1): 49–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ibarretxe-Antuñano, Iraide. 1999. Metaphorical mappings in the sense of smell. In Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 175], Raymond W. Gibbs Jr. & Gerard J. Steen (eds), 29–45. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kay, Paul, Berlin, Brent, Maffi, Louisa, Merrifield, William R. & Cook, Richard. 2009. The World Color Survey. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2015. Introducing “The linguistics of temperature”. In The Linguistics of Temparature [Typological Studies in Language 107], Maria Koptevskaja-Tamm (ed.), 1–40.Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(ed.). 2015. The Linguistics of Temperature [Typological Studies in Language 107]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lee, Amy Pei-Jung. 2015. Lexical categories and conceptualization of olfaction in Amis. Language and Cognition 7(3): 321–350. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Majid, Asifa & Burenhult, Niclas. 2014. Odors are expressible in language as long as you speak the right language. Cognition 130(2): 266–270. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Majid, Asifa & Kruspe, Nicole. 2018. Hunter-gatherer olfaction is special. Current Biology 28: 409–413. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maslova, Elena. 2004. A universal constraint on the sensory lexicon, or when hear can mean ‘see’? In Tipologiceskie obosnovanija v grammatike: k 70-letiju professora Xrakovskogo V.S., Alexandr P. Volodin (ed.), 300–312. Moscow: Znak. <[URL]> (9 April 2018).Google Scholar
Miller, George A. & Johnson-Laird, Philip N. 1976. Language and Perception. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nakagawa, Hirosi. 2012. The importance of TASTE verbs in some Khoe languages. Linguistics 50(3): 395–420. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
O’Meara, Carolyn & Majid, Asifa. 2016. How changing lifestyles impact Seri smellscapes and smell language. Anthropological Linguistics 58(2): 107–131. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Olofsson, Jonas K. & Gottfried, Jay A. 2015. The muted sense: Neurocognitive limitations of olfactory language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 19(6): 314–321. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plailly, Jane, Delon-Martin, Chantal & Royet,Jean-Pierre. 2012. Experience induces functional reorganization in brain regions involved in odor imagery in perfumers. Human Brain Mapping 33(1): 224–234. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Popova, Yanna B. 2003. ‘The fool sees with his nose’: Metaphoric mappings in the sense of smell in Patrick Süskind’s Perfume. Language and Literature 12(2): 135–151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reznikova, Tatiana, Rakhilina, Ekaterina & Bonch-Osmolovskaya, Anastasia. 2012. Towards a typology of pain predicates. Linguistics 50(3): 421–465. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
San Roque, Lila, Kendrick, Kobin H., Norcliffe, Elisabeth, Brown, Penelope, Defina, Rebecca, Dingemanse, Mark, Dirksmeyer, Tyko, Enfield, Nicolas J., Floyd, Simeon, Hammond, Jeremy, Rossi, Giovanni, Tufvesson, Sylvia, van Putten, Saskia & Majid, Asifa. 2015. Vision verbs dominate in conversation across cultures, but the ranking of non-visual verbs varies. Cognitive Linguistics 26(1): 31–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Staniewski, Przemysław. 2016. Das Unantastbare beschreiben. Gerüche und ihre Versprachlichung im Deutschen und Polnischen [Warschauer Studien zur Germanistik und zur Angewandten Linguistik 25]. Berlin: Peter Lang. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stokes, Dustin, Matthen, Mohan & Biggs, Stephen (eds). 2015. Perception and its Modalities. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Storch, Anne. 2013. Knowing, smelling and telling tales in Luwo. In Perception and Cognition in Language and Culture [Brill’s Studies in Language, Cognition and Culture 3], Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Anne Storch (eds), 47–68. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Strik-Lievers, Francesca. 2015. Synaesthetia: A corpus-based study of cross-modal directionality. Functions of Language 22(1): 69–95. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Süskind, Patrick. 1985/1994. Das Parfum. Die Geschichte eines Mörders. Zürich: Diogenes Verlag AG. (First published 1985. Citations from Diogenes Taschenbuch 1994).Google Scholar
. 1986. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, translated by J.E. Wood London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon [Language Typology and Syntactic Description 3], Timothy Shopen (ed.), 57–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tufvesson, Sylvia. 2011. Analogy-making in the Semai sensory world. The Senses and Society 6(1): 86–95. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Beek, Walter E. A. 1992. The dirty smith. Smell as a social frontier among the Kapsiki/Higi of North Cameroon and North-Eastern Nigeria. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 62(1): 38–58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vanhove, Martine. 2008. Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions: A crosslinguistic perspective. In From Polysemy to Semantic Change. Towards a Typology of Lexical Semantic Associations [Studies in Language Companion Series 106], Martine Vanhove (ed.), 341–370. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Viberg, Åke. 1983. The verbs of perception: A typological study. Linguistics 21(1): 123–162. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001. Verbs of perception. In Language Typology and Language Universals [Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 20.2], Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher & Wolfgang Raible (eds), 1294–1309. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
. 2015. Sensation, perception and cognition. Swedish in a typological-contrastive perspective. Functions of Language 22(1): 96–131. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017. Finding a model for contrastive lexical semantics: A look at verbal communication verbs. LingBaW Journal 3. <[URL]> (9 October 2018). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2019. Phenomenon-based perception verbs in Swedish from a typological and contrastive perspective. In Perception, perceptibilité et objet perçu. Approches inter-langues [Syntaxe & Sémantique 20], Éric Gilbert (ed.), 17–48. Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen. <[URL]> (7 September 2020). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Willander, Johan & Larsson, Maria. 2007. Olfaction and emotion: The case of autobiographical memory. Memory & Cognition 37(7): 1659–1663. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Winter, Bodo. 2016. Taste and smell words form an affectively loaded and emotionally flexible part of the English lexicon. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 31(8): 975–988. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wnuk, Ewelina. 2016. Semantic Specificity of Perception Verbs in Maniq. PhD dissertation, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen.
Wnuk, Evelina & Majid, Asifa. 2014. Revisiting the limits of language: The odor lexicon of Maniq. Cognition 131(1): 125–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zucco, Gesualdo M. 2007. Odor memory. The unique nature of a memory system. In Speaking of Colors and Odors [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 8], Martina Plümacher & Peter Holz (eds), 155–165. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Galac, Ádám
2024. Bold colors, sweeping melodies, offensive smells. International Journal of Language and Culture 11:1 ► pp. 58 ff. DOI logo
ÖZKAN KURT, Fatma
2022. Türkiye Türkçesinde Koku Alanını İfade Etme Biçimleri: Eylemler. Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi 6:4 ► pp. 1416 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.