SYNESTHESIA OF THE WEIGHT FEATURE: LANGUAGE DIMENSION

Abstract

Synesthesia is the ability of a person to perceive features of one perceptual modality in the differential coordinates of another. The weight feature is considered to be one of the oldest forms of characterizing objects. In the studies conducted on the material of various European languages, the ability of the weight feature to act as a source of synesthetic transfers has been proven to be high compared to other perceptual characteristics.
As a study result of the synesthesia phenomenon on the material of the Ukrainian prose text, it was found that the weight feature is often used to characterize the phenomena of other modalities. Illustrations for the use of the weight feature of "heavy" / "difficult" in the modes of hearing, pain, sight, smell, taste, and temperature have been found. The absolute favourite in the use of a weight feature to characterize personal objects turned out to be the modus of hearing (33% of the material). The material reveals the existence of certain thematic groups of audio vocabulary that have an open valence to the perception of a weight feature: names and results of the speech process, nominations related to movement, names of physiological audio phenomena (sighing), names of silence, audio expression of emotions. The use of the weight feature in the modes of pain (12%), vision (8%), smell (5%), taste (3%), and temperature (2% of the analysed material) is presented in a smaller number. In isolated cases, complex patterns of a combination of weight, pain and auditory features have been recorded.
We believe that emotional vocabulary, together with perceptual modusi, are a component of synesthetic changes. Enrolment of the field of emotional expression in the linguistic objects of synesthesia radically changes the picture, since the WEIGHT – EMOTION model occupies the first position in a number of quantitative realization of synesthetic transitions of the weight feature (37%). The adjectives "heavy" / "difficult" are used to describe suffering, sorrow, and grief. The presence of complex models of feeling, which combine components from the weight, auditory and emotional spheres, as well as weight, visual and emotional ones, has been objectified.