• 기호학연구
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• no.56
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• pp.7-44
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• 2018

The objective of this paper is to propose a classification of Korean taste terms, especially Korean taste adjectives, from the perspective of cognitive science. The classification of Korean taste terms is here grounded in the definition of 'taste sense', 'flavor' and 'taste' which is usually employed in disciplines of cognitive science. There have been a large number of domestic researches in field of taste terms. Accordingly, a lot of research findings on the classification of taste terms have steadily been released showing the differences among researchers. These different classifications are largely based on the fact that researchers have applied their subjective criteria rather than their objective in order to categorize taste terms. According to previous studies, it is well-known that, in everyday usage, the term 'taste' covers a much wider range of qualities than those perceived through the taste receptor cells alone. In addition, we take it for granted that as much as 80~90% of taste comes from olfactory modality. It is also important to note that the texture and temperature of food, the color of food, the sounds of food, and atmospheric cues have an essential effect on taste perception. Many scientists have already pointed out that taste evaluations are influenced by a number of individual and sociocultural factors. Eating and tasting are important parts of our everyday life, so that linguistic approaches to taste perception seem to be of great significance. We can assume that a classification of taste terms from the perspective of cognitive sciences may shed light on the perceptive mechanism through which we perceive taste. It should be noted that this paper is an advanced work prepared for the follow-up study which will try to make a geometric model of word field 'taste terms' existing or probably existing in the mental lexicon of human beings.