METAPHORIZATION OF KINAESTHETIC QUALITIES: COMPARISON OF RUSSIAN, ENGLISH AND ITALIAN LANGUAGES

Abstract

The study analyzes metaphorical meanings of ‘heavy’ adjectives in English, Russian and Italian languages. Dictionaries and text corpora provide metaphorical meanings of the adjectives, which can be grouped into types based on transfer mechanisms. Links between different types and their distribution in languages ​​reflect metaphorization directions. Languages ​​choose different directions and move with different speed. Among the languages in this research, English explores the potential of ‘heavy’ metaphorical meanings the most, as it possesses the highest number of types, and it is close to creating a full-fledged intensifier out of its main adjective heavy. Italian has a number of unique types, whereas Russian has the most diversified field in terms of physical meanings of the lexemes. The data obtained confirm both universality and linguistic specificity of sensory experience.

Keywords

• сенсорные качества
• качество «тяжелый»
• метафоризация
• синестезия
• кросслингвистическое исследование
• sensory qualities
• quality 'heavy'
• metaphorization
• synesthesia
• cross-linguistic research