Cooking verbs and the cultural conceptualization of cooking processes in Japanese

Abstract

This chapter provides a semantic analysis of Japanese cooking verbs in comparison with English counterparts. It will be shown that some of the semantic components that are lexicalized (or incorporated) to form a verb’s meaning reflects a cultural conceptualization of food preparation. Building upon Lehrer’s (1972) analysis of Japanese cooking verbs but further revising it, the chapter will showcase relevant aspects of a culturally constructed conceptualization of food preparation reflected in the Japanese language. Interestingly, a comparison between Japanese and English appears to show a relatively meager inventory of cooking verbs in Japanese. However, while Japanese may have a more limited number of cooking verbs in which semantic components are lexicalized, the language makes available other linguistic means such as use of mimetics and compounding that detail the cooking process. These additional mechanisms help maintain the broad range of fine-grained descriptions pertinent to the cooking process, while simultaneously preserving a culturally constructed conceptualization of food preparation.