Synesthesia in Multimodal Perceptual Image as a Result of Conceptual Integration (descriptive register of the English literary text)

The article presents a study of perceptual multimodality which implies simultaneous perception by visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and other perceptual modalities. In the literary text perceptual multimodality is conveyed through the means of the descriptive register of speech, which is aimed at emphasizing the perceptual semantic component of the situation. Perceptual multimodality manifests itself in synesthetic metaphor. The article scrutinizes synesthetic metaphor as a means of perceptual multimodality from the standpoint of conceptual integration theory. The article aims at analyzing the process of synesthetic metaphor formation with the help of conceptual integration modeling. The aim of the study presupposes the following: firstly, to analyze linguistic means creating a multimodal perceptual image representing the visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile semantic components of the situation of perception; secondly, to consider the register relation to an utterance when modeling the processes of mental space integration; thirdly, to describe the lingual means representing a multimodal perceptual image by means of cognitive-stylistic analysis, taking into account specific features of the descriptive register of speech. The analysis of the input spaces’ domains makes it possible to identify the conceptual features that serve as the basis for the metaphorization resulting in blended space: the domain of the input space SMELL expressed by the lexeme pollen integrates the semantic features of visual and olfactory perception within the Blooming flowers frame. The domain “pollen” endows the adjacent mental spaces SOUND, COLOR with the conceptual attribute “the ability (of three-dimensional physical objects) to float in the air”. The article presents the models of conceptual metaphors that reveal the way the conceptual characteristics are gradually borrowed into adjacent mental spaces and a blended space is formed. The conceptual features of the integrated mental space are as follows: color is a substance (and not an inherent feature), sound is a visible substance; color and sound float in the air in waves, mixing like homogeneous substances. The study results in a model of multicomponent integration of mental spaces, which is reflected in the text by the author’s synesthetic metaphor.