A Cognitive Interpretation of Synaesthesia

Synaesthesia is a sensual feeling moved from one sense to another,it is a kind of rhetorical means as well as a cognitive device.According to Conceptual Blending Theory,synaesthesia is a set of mappings between different sensory organs,whose meaning construction process is a dynamic conceptual blending process,in which two or more sensory organs constitute different input mental spaces.In the blending process,different input spaces map between each other,and elements in inputs are selectively projected onto the blended space,which has its own emergent structure.Then,through composition,completion and elaboration,the blended space develops its own emergent content which is different from that of the inputs,thus producing new meaning.The in-depth study of the dynamic meaning construction process of synaesthesia based on the conceptual blending theory gives a strong explanatory force to synaesthesia and helps people to make better use of synaesthesia to express their thoughts and feelings.