Dr Backhouse undertakes a semantic study of taste terms in modern spoken Japanese. Through an investigation of the range of vocabulary available for the description of taste qualities, and their interrelationship in terms of meaning, Dr Backhouse presents a sensitive elucidation of the structure of Japanese taste terms, which has significant implications for anthropological linguistics. He explores important semantic issues, such as the relationship between evaluative and descriptive meaning, the intralinguistic mechanisms at work in metaphor, and draws illuminating connections between the lexical field of colour and that of taste.