米飯的感知及其在中文及日文的語言表達

Abstract

無庸置疑，人類的每一項知覺都一樣重要。因為我們仰賴這些知覺接收來自周遭的訊息，只要有一個消失不見，我們在生活上便會遇到困難。然而，在語言表達上，知覺並非一樣重要。嗅覺看似是最難表達的知覺，因為人們常常依賴物體來表達嗅覺，例如「草的味道」。另一方面，我們無需依賴物體、並使用顏色來表達視覺。當我們想陳述對於「天空」的想法時，我們會使用「藍色」而不是「天空的顏色」。不同的語言有無可能把重點放在不同的知覺上？如果是，是什麼原因造成不同的語言現象？\n 觀察人們如何表達對食物的看法非常適合用來討論知覺表達，因為品嚐食物的過程和視覺、嗅覺、味覺、及口感息息相關。本研究搜集來自中文及日文母語者有關食物的知覺表達，包括職業廚師及料理新手。米飯在中國及日本文化扮演著主食的角色，這項文化地位讓米飯成為與發音人面談上的主題。假設所有的知覺在不同文化都一樣重樣，人們應該會以相似的方式來表達知覺。研究結果發現在知覺表達中，中文母語者主要強調口感，但日語母語者強調視覺。透過比較職業廚師及料理新手也能找到知覺表達上的差異：職業廚師主要著重視覺，新手則重視味覺。人們亦使用不同的認知策略來表達不同知覺，但職業廚師及新手都依賴對食物的評價來表達知覺。從生理學上來看，人類的知覺一樣重要，但中文及日文的知覺表達卻不一樣。本研究認為文化及社會因素了影響語言的知覺表達。

Senses are undoubtedly important to people because they allow us to experience our world and we would face difficulties when any of them were absent. However, senses are not equally important in linguistic expressions. It seems that expressing odors is difficult in some languages because people often rely on concrete objects to make olfactory expressions, such as cǎo de weìdào ‘the smell of grass.’ Making use of color rather than concrete objects for visual expressions, we often choose lán ‘blue’ rather than tiānkōng de yánsè ‘the color of sky’ when expressing what we feel from sky. Is it possible that different emphasis of senses can be observed in different languages? If so, what is the reason leading to the differences in languages? \n Observing how people express their feeling toward food is an appropriate method to discuss sensory expressions, because the procedure of tasting food is strongly correlated with multiple senses like vision, odor, taste, and mouthfeel. This study collects sensory expressions of food from both Chinese and Japanese speakers, including both experts and novices of cooking. Acting as the main dish in Chinese and Japanese cultures, rice is regarded as the theme of interview due to the cultural importance. If all senses are important in different cultures, they should be expressed in similar ways. Our results suggest that Chinese mainly focuses on mouthfeel, while Japanese mainly focuses on vision when performing sensory expressions. The differences in sensory expressions can also be observed through comparing experts with novices: experts mainly focus on vision, and novices firstly choose taste. People also make use of different cognitive strategies to express different kinds of senses, but both experts and novices rely on the evaluative type to create sensory expressions. Sensory expressions are different between Chinese and Japanese although senses are physiologically identical for people. This study suggests that both culture and social factors influence sensory expressions in languages.