What is Sense-Making Theory

In this chapter, the author attempts to define the verbs in the description of Japanese sake taste by employing 1) a usage-based approach, 2) “encyclopedic semantics” rather than a “dictionary view,” and 3) sense-making theory, drawing on data from a “sake tasting description corpus” (approximately 120,000 words). The chapter selects eight verbs of high frequency (e.g., hirogaru ‘spread') and defines their sense(s) in a bottom-up and abductive fashion, based on a score indicating the strength of co-occurrence between terms. In this study, the authors deal with the verbs for “Understanding” or “Interpretation ”; it means, verbs that contribute to narrating the personal, individual story (contents) of the tasters. This study suggests the verbs for understanding have senses related to [Timeline] and [Space]. On the other hand, verbs do not tend to collocate with [Movement] and interestingly, the [Structure], as same as the tendency of adjectival-nouns.