Browsing results for Burarra

(2005) Visual semantics

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”.

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(2006) Colours and vision

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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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2007) Shape and colour

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.

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