언어와 감각 : 커피 향미 표현에 대한 민족지적 사례 연구

Language and the Senses: An Ethnographic Case Study of Coffee Flavor Terms in South Korea

This paper explores the relations between language and the senses, by analyzing how people conceptualize and verbalize their sensory experiences of coffee flavors in the contemporary South Korean society. It first examines various linguistic descriptors for coffee flavors in the lexical level, of which acquisition is often associated with the speaker’s increased capacity to discern and express their sensory experiences of coffee tastes and aromas. It also illustrates the ways in which the sensory perceptions of coffee flavors are expressed across different modalities, as shown in the examples of the synesthetic expressions of visual images of coffee and the spatial constructions of its flavors. Specific qualities of coffee flavors are also identified with some attributes and activities of their consumers, which are often extended to index the consumers’ specific social identities. Therefore, this paper demonstrates the crucial roles that language plays in mediating between the individual and subjective dimension of sensory expressions and their social and cultural meanings in various social contexts.