Browsing results for Colours and vision
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 17, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1990). The meaning of color terms: Semantics, culture, and cognition. Cognitive Linguistics, 1(1), 99-150.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1990.1.1.99
Abstract:
It has been claimed that the semantics of basic colour terms in all languages directly reflects the existence of pan-human neural response categories. But how can language be “directly” linked to neural responses? Language reflects conceptualizations, not the neural representation of colour in the pathways between the eye and brain. The link between the neural representation of colour and the linguistic representation of colour can only be indirect. The way leads via concepts. Sense data are “private” (even if they are rooted in pan-human neural responses), whereas concepts can be shared. To be able to talk with others about one’s private sense data, one must be able to translate them first into communicable concepts.
This paper argues against the current accounts of colour semantics and proposes a new interpretation of the evolutionary sequence discovered by Berlin and Kay. Although our colour sensations occur in our brains, not in the world outside, and their nature is probably determined to a large extent by our human biology (which links us, in some measure, with other primates), to be able to communicate about these sensations, we project them onto something in our shared environment. The author argues that colour concepts are anchored in certain “universals of human experience”, and that these universals can be identified, roughly speaking, as day and night, fire, the sun, vegetation, the sky, and the ground.
Translations:
Into Polish:
Chapter 11 (pp. 405-450) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1999), Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
More information:
A more recent publication building on this one is:
Chapter 10 (pp. 287-334) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1996), Semantics: Primes and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
이해윤 [Lee, Hae Yun] (2005). 기본 색채 형용사의 의미기술 [The meanings of colour adjectives]. 獨語敎育 (Koreanische Zeitschrift für deutschunterricht) [Korean Journal for German Language Teaching], 33, 141-160.
Written in Korean.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2005). There are no “color universals” but there are universals of visual semantics. Anthropological Linguistics, 47(2), 217-244. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25132327
The search for the “universals of colour” that was initiated by Berlin and Kay’s classic book is based on the assumption that there can be, and indeed that there are, some conceptual universals of colour. This article brings new evidence, new analyses, and new arguments against the Berlin and Kay paradigm, and offers a radically different alternative to it. The new data on which the argument is based come, in particular, from Australian languages, as well as from Polish and Russian. The article deconstructs the concept of “colour,” and shows how indigenous visual descriptors can be analysed without reference to colour, on the basis of identifiable visual prototypes and the universal concept of seeing. It also offers a model for analysing semantic change and variation from “the native’s point of view”.
Tags: (E) blue, (E) colour, (E) goluboj, (E) gungaltja, (E) gungarlcha, (E) gungundja, (E) gungunyja, (E) maru-maru, (E) niebieski, (E) shiny, (E) sinij, (E) yukuri-yukuri
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 17, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2006). The semantics of colour: A new paradigm. In Carole P. Biggam, & Christian J. Kay (Eds.), Progress in colour studies: Vol. 1. Language and culture (pp. 1-24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/z.pics1.05wie
Abstract:
To be able to establish the true universals of visual semantics we must first of all reject the ones that are false. Above all, we must reject the widespread view that there are some ‘colour universals’, whether absolute or implicational. There are no ‘colour universals’ because ‘colour’ itself is not a universal concept. What is universal is the concept of SEEing. SEEing, not colour, must be the starting point, and the cornerstone, of our investigations.
It appears that in all languages there are visual descriptors referring to some features of the natural environment. Apart from such universal or widespread environmental features, all languages appear to have visual descriptors referring to some features of the local environment, in particular to visually salient local minerals and other pigments, especially those that can be used for painting, decoration, or dyeing. It also appears that in all languages there are some visual descriptors linked to the human (and sometimes animal) body. In addition to such commonalities in the visual descriptors, there is also a wide variety of more restricted and even idiosyncratic types.
To understand the human conceptualization of the visual world in both its diversity and its commonalities, we need to recognize the role of environmental and bodily prototypes recurring in human experience (such as fire, sun, blood, sky and grass), and to base our analysis on the bedrock of universal human concepts; and it is only on this basis that we can hope to arrive at a tenable and enduring synthesis.
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Tags: (E) gungaltja, (E) gungundja, (E) piros, (E) red, (E) vörös
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2007). Shape and colour in language and thought. In Andrea C. Schalley, & Drew Khlentzos (Eds.), Mental states: Vol. 2. Language and cognitive structure (pp. 37-60). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.93.05wie
“Colour” and “shape” are concepts important to the speakers of English and of many other languages. They are not, however, universal: there are many languages which have no words corresponding to the English words colour and shape, and in which questions like “what colour is it?” or “what shape is it?” cannot be asked at all. Clearly, speakers of such languages do not think about the world in terms of “colour” and “shape”. How do they think about it, then?
This study shows that by using an empirically discovered set of universal semantic primes which includes see and touch we can effectively explore ways of construal of the visual and tangible world different from those embedded in, and encouraged by, English.
Tags: (E) beginning, (E) bottom, (E) colour, (E) end, (E) ends, (E) envy, (E) feel compassion, (E) gungaltja, (E) gungarlcha, (E) hands, (E) high, (E) long, (E) low, (E) podłużny, (E) round, (E) shape, (E) short, (E) threaten, (E) top, (E) umbrella, (E) warn
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 16, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2008). Why there are no ‘colour universals’ in language and thought. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, (N.S.) 14, 407-425. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9655.2008.00509.x
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 4 (pp. 80-101) of:
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Do all people live in a world full of colours? Perceptually, yes (unless they are visually impaired), but conceptually, no: there are many languages which have no word for ‘colour’ and in which the question What colour is it? cannot be asked and presumably does not arise. Yet the powerful and still immensely influential theory of Berlin and Kay assumes otherwise. While building on the author’s earlier work on colour semantics, this article brings new evidence against the Berlin and Kay paradigm, and presents a fundamentally different approach. The new data on which the argument is based come from Australian languages. In particular, the article presents a detailed study of the visual world reflected in the Australian language Warlpiri and in Warlpiri ways of speaking, showing that while Warlpiri people have no “colour talk” (and no “colour practices”), they have a rich visual discourse of other kinds, linked with their own cultural practices. It also offers a methodology for identifying indigenous meanings without the grid of the English concept ‘colour’, and for revealing “the native’s point of view”.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) colour, (E) kunjuru-kunjuru, (E) kuruwarri-kuruwarri, (E) yukuri-yukuri, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 21, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2015). The meaning of color words in a cross-linguistic perspective. In Andrew J. Elliot, Mark D. Fairchild, & Anna Franklin (Eds.), The handbook of color psychology (pp. 295-316). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781107337930.015
No abstract available.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 24, 2019.
Aragón, Karime (2016). Mexican colors and meanings: An ethnolinguistic study of visual semantics in Oaxaca. In Geda Paulsen, Mari Uusküla, & Jonathan Brindle (Eds.), Color language and color categorization (pp. 302-332). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Abstract:
This study explores the meanings of Mexican Spanish colour words using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Visual meanings are associated with widespread natural and material prototypes identified in the speaker’s cultural and environmental contexts. The results of the ethnolinguistic fieldwork reveal the visual meanings embedded in Mexican Spanish colour terms and their prototypes, illustrating the way Oaxacans think and talk about colour and account for the specifics of their visual and cultural practices.
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on October 15, 2017. Last updated on June 17, 2019.
Aragón, Karime (2017). Visuality, identity and emotion: Rosa mexicano as a Mexican Spanish keyword. In Carsten Levisen & Sophia Waters (Eds.), Cultural keywords in discourse (pp. 131-156). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.277.06ara
Abstract:
This chapter presents a semantic and ethnopragmatic analysis of the Mexican Spanish colour word rosa mexicano. This word functions as a symbol of Mexican identity and serves as a cultural key word for Mexican Spanish speakers. It appears in a variety of discourses, such as international and cross-cultural relations, the arts, education and discursive representations of national self-perception. After providing a semantic analysis of the meaning of the word, the chapter moves on to an ethnopragmatic examination, articulating cultural scripts for the visual, identificational and emotional meanings associated with rosa mexicano discourse.
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) rosa mexicano, (S) rosa mexicano
Published on August 20, 2018. Last updated on June 17, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2018). How much longer can the Berlin and Kay paradigm dominate visual semantics? English, Russian and Warlpiri seen ‘from the native’s point of view’. In Diana Young (Ed.), Rematerializing colour: From concept to substance (pp. 67-90). Herefordshire: Sean Kingston Publishing.
Abstract:
How does the outsider linguist find out if speakers of another language have colour terms? Using the Australian Aboriginal language Warlpiri as a starting point, the author argues that interpretation of the patterns of names produced in response to stimuli (such as Munsell colour chips) is difficult, and one has to take care not to assign English terms to those patterns. That is, in trying to interpret what a word means, we cannot assume that kardirri means ‘white’, because speakers produced this word when looking at chips with colours that English speakers might call ‘white’. The focus here is on determining the senses (intensions) of words – that is, on finding language-specific categories. The Warlpiri lack a word approximating the English word ‘colour’. It is claimed that, if speakers do not have a word for a category such as colour, it is hard to say that in their minds they see the world in terms of a cognitive category ‘colour’ (which is not to deny that they have colour vision).
Examination of dictionary entries in the Warlpiri-English Dictionary establishes the importance of the properties ‘visual conspicuousness’ (the startling pink prunus trees), ‘things shining somewhere’ (sunlight gleaming on the white cockatoos), ‘visual contrasts within an object’ (the dappled pink and green of the japonica hedge), and creating colour reference by comparison with things in the world around (kunjuru ‘smoke’, kunjuru-kunjuru ‘like smoke’, a term conventionally applied to smoke-coloured things). However, even though the Dictionary is a good starting-place for raising such hypotheses, it cannot help us test them, since it is a collection of all words, with little comment on whether they are used frequently or not, and since the words come from several dialects.
The author argues against using the word ‘colour’ in the English definitions and translations in the dictionary, because this creates or reinforces a belief that the Warlpiri have a linguistic category of ‘colour’.
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Tags: (E) kunjuru-kunjuru, (E) sky, (E) yukuri-yukuri, (T) English
Published on November 28, 2019. Last updated on November 28, 2019.
Levisen, Carsten (2019). “Brightness” in color linguistics: New light from Danish visual semantics. In Ida Raffaelli, Daniela Katunar, & Barbara Kerovec (Eds.), Lexicalization patterns in color naming: A cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 83-108). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.78.05lev
Abstract:
This chapter scrutinizes the discourse of “brightness” in colour linguistics. Drawing on insights from visual semantics and linguistic anthropology, and challenging the universal applicability of “brightness”, the study provides new evidence from Danish. The chapter provides a new analysis of the lexicogrammar and linguaculture of lys ‘light, brightness’ in relation to color. The NSM approach is used to provide detailed semantic explications for three grammatical devices based on lys (lys, lys-, and lyse-), along with an analysis of three Danish lys + colour compounds lyserød ‘light red’, lysegrøn ‘light green’, and lyseblå ‘light blue’. Based on the evidence from Danish and other studies in visual semantics, the chapter calls for a renewed focus on the non-chromatic aspects of visual meanings, and for a metalinguistic reform in colour linguistics.
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) blå, (E) bright, (E) grøn, (E) light, (E) lyseblå, (E) lysegrøn, (E) lyserød, (E) rød, (T) Danish
Published on June 19, 2020. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Tao, Jiashu & Wong, Jock. (2020). The confounding Mandarin colour term ‘qīng’: Green, blue, black or all of the above and more?. In Lauren Sadow, Bert Peeters, & Kerry Mullan (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 3. Minimal English (and beyond) (pp. 191-212). Singapore: Springer.
Abstract
The Mandarin word qīng (‘青’), which Google translates to ‘green’, ‘blue’ and even ‘black’, among other colour terms in English, is one of the oldest, most frequently used colour terms in Mandarin and probably the most confounding. The word is polysemous and its multiple meanings and combinations with other words have generated much confusion among generations of non-native speakers and learners of Mandarin, and perhaps even native speakers. To help Mandarin speakers and learners better understand the word, dictionaries mainly define qīng using English colour terms, such as ‘green’, ‘blue’ and ‘black’, which is to a certain extent helpful but which raises questions, such as if Mandarin speakers do not distinguish between the colours green and blue. There is thus a need to semantically analyse this word to help Mandarin learners acquire a deeper understanding of its multiple meanings and uses. The objective of this paper is to study the multiple meanings of the character qīng, one of which dates back to the late Shang Dynasty (1200–1050 BC), when the oracle bone script, the earliest known form of Chinese writing, was first used. This paper also compares its meanings with those of two related colour terms lǜ (‘绿’) and lán (‘蓝’), which are associated with the English ‘green’ and ‘blue’, respectively. To capture the meanings and their differences with maximal clarity and minimal ethnocentrism, the authors use Minimal English.
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Tags: (E) colour, (E) lán, (E) lǜ, (E) qing 清, (S) use of 'qīng'
