spürtetlike

Spürtetlike is a neologism used in linguistic and literary studies to describe a discourse feature in which abstract concepts are framed through vivid sensory cues that resemble physical perception. The form blends the German verb spüren, to feel, with the English suffix -like, signaling resemblance. It has appeared in discussions of embodied cognition and sensorimotor metaphor to name a specific class of descriptive constructions.

Usage and characteristics: Spürtetlike constructions typically attach to nouns or adjectives to attribute a tangible sensory quality to non-sensory phenomena, such as memory, time, or social states. They rely on metaphor, personification, and cross-modal associations, and they often appear in narrative prose, immersive journalism, or experimental texts. The term is primarily used in qualitative analysis and corpus studies that track vividness and reader engagement.

Origins and reception: The term emerged in the 2020s within debates about how language conveys experiential reality. Because it is a relatively new label, definitions vary and there is no single consensus on its boundaries or diagnostics. Critics caution that the label can overlap with broader categories like vivid diction or embodied metaphor, and some scholars advocate careful differentiation from related concepts.

Examples and scope: In published or online discourse, spürtetlike can describe passages that endow an abstract event with sensory texture—describing how a moment “feels” in a way that invites the reader to imagine physical sensation. Its utility lies in analyzing how language leverages perceptual grounding to shape interpretation.

See also: embodiment, conceptual metaphor, sensorimotor metaphor, vivid language.