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.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
