Synaesthesia (rhetorical device)

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Synaesthesia is a rhetorical device or figure of speech where one sense is described in terms of another. [1] This may often take the form of a simile. [2] One can distinguish the literary joining of terms derived from the vocabularies of sensory domains from synaesthesia as a neuropsychological phenomenon. [3]

Contents

Panchronistic tendencies

It has been suggested that, in the tradition of Romantic poetry, the sensory transfer consisting in the synaesthesic metaphor tends to be from a lower (less differentiated) sense to a higher sense. In this respect, the sequence of senses from low to high is generally taken to be touch, taste, smell, sound, then sight. [4] This observation was named a panchronistic tendency by Stephen Ullmann since he saw the lowest levels of sense having the poorest vocabulary. [4] Upwards transfers are thought to have strong emotional effects, but downwards transfers generally witty effects. [3]

Rhetorical synaesthesia as simile

Examples of synaesthesic simile:

Rhetorical synaesthesia as transmodal modification

When a modifier which would normally apply to one sense is used collocating a noun evocative of another sense, this is known as transmodal modification. [2] Examples include:

Rhetorical synaesthesia as transmodal predication

When a noun evoking one sense is linked with a predicate evoking another, this is known as transmodal predication. [2] Examples include:

Synaesthetic polysemy

When a linkage of two senses depends upon a pun, this is known as synaesthetic polysemy. [2] Examples include:

"the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music"

Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant [2]

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References

  1. Forsyth, Mark. The Elements of Eloquence . p. 32.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Anderson, Earl R. (1998). A Grammar of Iconism. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p. 199.
  3. 1 2 Tsur, Reuven (Spring 2007). "Issues in Literary Synaesthesia". Style. 41 (1): 30–52.
  4. 1 2 Ullmann, Stephen (1957). The Principles of Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.