Traces of cannibalistic instinct in food denomination.
Drawing attention to the associations evoked in the process of food denomination, the paper attempts to reveal the traces of cannibalistic instinct in this realm. By singling out some of the principal ways used in the semantic reticulum to name food, special attention is devoted to those names that allude to particular categories of enemies (devoured as wholes or as parts of the body). What is referred to as "anti-taboo" shows how the linguistic and more generally the anthropological 'substitution process' is a human reaction to the persistence of the cannibalistic taboo in the face of the belief that cannibalism is an impulse far removed from modern society. Finally it is noted that cannibalistic metaphors have been analysed in other fields, whereas in the area of food denomination they have been neglected. The suggestion is that the reason for such neglect may lie in an attempt to conceal our closeness to the cannibalistic instinct in the form of linguistic substitution.
Modena
Maria Luisa Mayer
ML
Institute of Glottology and Oriental Languages, University of Milan, Milan, Italy. mayer@mailserver.unimi.it
D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D002190:Cannibalism; D005502:Food; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D019365:Metaphor; D013609:Taboo; D009626:Terminology as Topic