Term of colour: origin ,specifics and approaches to the study.

The world around us is always coloured in some way and naturally, it is necessary to use the colour terms. In the dictionary of any language there is limited number of colour names (usually 100-150). At the same time the human eye can discern much more colours (hues to 100,000). Children usually memorize colour terms late, and when communicating even adults often have so-called "communication failure". It is experimentally proved that often one person under some colour designation implies a certain hue, while the other person perceives the information in his own way. This raises the question - What is the "colour"? Primarily to answer this question must a physicist, not a linguist.

Newton found that the light rays are not coloured. Colour – is electromagnetic waves with a certain set of characteristics (intensity, spectral composition and etc.), which are physical correlates, and ambiguous to characteristics of our perceptive images. Each of the colours of the spectrum corresponds to the wave length - from the most short to the longest (respectively purple and red colour). The white colour is a mixture of all colours of the rainbow, then it is not resolvable by using a prism. A more detailed response to the the question "what is a colour?" should be sought not only in nature, but also in the structure and functioning of our visual system.

Psychologists under the sensations and perceptions understand certain types of images, i.e. purely subjective phenomenon. This means that the concept of “colour” does not exist out of our perception.

It should be noted that the colour vision is formed in different climatic conditions and different ways of life. Therefore, even the ancient people understood that one and the same object in daylight and night lighting will be different colour stain. This difference of colour is caused at the level of neurophysiology. At very low light people can distinguish only large forms. This fact due to the fact that under these conditions operates rod vision as sticks have a greater sensitivity to light, and cones begin to work only with a high level of illumination. Rod system is not involved in the formation of colour view, therefore, a man in the twilight slightly distinguish colours. In many languages, there is a saying: all cats are grey in the dark. If in daylight, some colours look bright equally, for example, green and yellow, then green will be brighter in twilight (although both are gray). Red colour at twilight illumination will look black.

Colours and their symbolic signification can be problematic, particularly in translation. Some of their symbolic uses and meanings differ from one culture to another. Some symbolic uses are universal such as the colour “red” which is a universal symbol of blood, but there are cases peculiar to particular cultures. Thus, the perception of colour idiomatic expressions depends widely on the culture in question. One colour might be interpreted in one way in German and in a totally different way in English. Furthermore, colour meaning may be a matter of context. In other words, the meaning of colour idiomatic expressions is determined by the context it is used in, and that is why colour idiomatic expressions could have a multitude of additional meanings other than its dictionary meaning.

According to Xing, each colour term has three kinds of meaning: original meaning, extended meaning and abstract meaning. As for original meaning, it is the etymological meaning of the colour. Extended meaning is defined as the meaning extended from the original meaning through metaphor or other cognitive means and lastly is the abstract meaning which refers to the meaning that has been further abstracted from the extended meaning. For example, the extended meaning of colour “yellow” indicates that it has a positive association such as with “gold”, and the abstract meaning indicates that it has a negative function such as “yellow smile” (cruel)[6; p.154].

Sapir -Whorf hypothesis, or the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, originated in the United States under the influence of linguistic works of Edward Sapir and B. Whorf. From their point of view, language and way of thinking of people are interconnected. By mastering the language, native speaker acquires a certain attitude to the world, which is reflected in the structure of his native language. Since different languages classify the surrounding reality differently, then language bearers differentiate mode of attitude to it. Whorf claims “we dissect nature in the direction laid down by our native language. We distinguish certain categories and types of phenomena in the world not because they are self-evident, on the contrary, the world appears before us as a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds, and it means basically – language system, in our minds” [7, p.213]. The consequence of the recognition of linguistic relativity hypothesis is the recognition that language keeps a certain system of values, and values ​​expressed in it are added to the collective philosophy inherent to all bearers of the language. In other words, there are a number of the basic prototypical referents in the mind of speaker, which he uses to name a particular colour. Perhaps this statement is true, but for later colour terms that occur on the model of "a colour, as..." (brown - the colour of cinnamon; navy - colours of Navy clothing, etc.). However, it can be suggested that to archaic thinking it was typical special syncretistic consciousness. There are various points view on the question what is the basis of colour terms. British researchers Berlin and Kay investigated colour and its etymology. They described their research in the book “ The basic colour terms: their universality andevolution ” [8, p.194]. They concluded that 95% of the colours come from the names of objects. Only 5% of the words do not have clear etymology.

In the study of colour terms B. Berlin and P. Kay’s universal character of the evolution of colour terms occupies special place. British scientists as a result of a number of studies concluded that the process of the emergence and development of colour terms in different languages ​​is a kind of language universals. After processing the extensive linguistic material (data of about 80 different languages)​​, in their work " The basic colour terms: their universality and evolution," written in 1969, they made the following conclusions:

1) Colour – is a semantic universal.

2) Colour terms in Indo-European languages can be depicted by three characteristics: the colour tone (hue), brightness and saturation.

3) As the basic unit of colour terms acts “basic colour term”.

4) The number of universal basic colours-term is limited.

Berlin and Kay have identified 11 basic colour terms: white, black, red, blue, green, yellow, brown, purple, orange, pink, gray. The criteria for selection are the following features:

1) the word must be a mono - lexeme term;

2) its meaning should not be the meaning of another already-coloured names;

3) the word must have broad combinability;

4) the word should be significant for native speakers;

5) In composition of "basic colour terms" should not be included recent borrowings.

Among other things, Berlin and Kay developed and substantiated stadial character of colour concepts, that is, all the colours in the language and culture appear in a certain order, from the more simple and meaningful for a person to more complex. This procedure is usually inherent in most languages. Total Berlin and Kay have identified seven stages of the formation of a core set of colour terms:

· The first level - it is white (as the image of sunlight) and black (night symbolizes peace) colour.

· To the second level belongs red as the colour of blood and fire, the most important component in a person's life. According to British anthropologist, ethnographer, folklorist and sociologist Victor W. Turner, who studied the ritual practice of African tribes, the triad of "white-black-red" is not only versatile, but also, the primary as well as a symbolic sense of colour triad is fundamentally similar in various cultures.

· The third, fourth and fifth levels, respectively, appear blue (the colour of water and sky), green (the colour of vegetation), and yellow (light of the sun, stars, gold colour) - the colours, dominant in the natural world surrounding man.

· The sixth level is allocated brown, and at last, the seventh - colours such as pink, orange, purple and gray. Moreover, scientists concluded that most of the names of colours derived from the names of objects. At the beginning, the colour is transferred into the language indirectly, by reference to the colour of the relevant common objects or objects of nature: "snow" (white), "a soot" (black), "blood" (red), etc.

According to this hypothesis, all languages ​​have terms for white and black colours. Thus, the minimum number of colour terms in the language - two. The authors present data on the modern language, which distinguish only black and white: this language is “Jale”, belonging to the New Guinea Trans fillets, spread in Irian – Jaya, Indonesia [8, p.23]. B. Berlin and P. Kay developed the following scheme of the basic colour terms:

 

 

I	II	III	IV	V
light–warm (white/yellow/red) dark–cool (black/blue/green)	white red/yellow black/blue/ green	white red yellow black/blue/green	white red yellow green black/blue	white red yellow green blue black
white red/yellow green/blue black	white red yellow green/blue black
white red yellow/green/blue black

 

Berlin and Kay also found that, in languages with fewer than the maximum eleven colour categories, the colours followed a specific evolutionary pattern. This pattern is as follows:

1. All languages contain terms for black and white.

2. If a language contains three terms, then it contains a term for red.

3. If a language contains four terms, then it contains a term for either green or yellow (but not both).

4. If a language contains five terms, then it contains terms for both green and yellow.

5. If a language contains six terms, then it contains a term for blue.

6. If a language contains seven terms, then it contains a term for brown.

7. If a language contains eight or more terms, then it contains terms for purple, pink, orange, and/or gray [8, p.78].

Initially, Berlin and Kay's theory received little direct criticism. But in the decades since their 1969 book, a significant scholarly debate has developed surrounding the universalism of colour terminology. Many relativists find significant issues with this universalism. Barbara Saunders and John A. Lucy are two scholars who are prominent advocates of the opposing relativist position.

Barbara Saunders believes that Berlin and Kay's theory of basic colour terminology contains several unspoken assumptions and significant flaws in research methodology. Included in these assumptions is an ethnocentric bias based on traditions of Western scientific and philosophical thought. She regards the evolutionary component of Berlin and Kay's theory as "an endorsement of the idea of progress" and references Smart's belief that it is "a Eurocentric narrative that filters everything through the West and its values and exemplifies a universal evolutionary process of modernization."

With regard to Berlin and Kay's research, Saunders criticizes the translation methods used for the colour terms they gathered from the 78 languages they had not studied directly. Like many others, she also questions the effectiveness of using the Munsell colour system in the elicitation of colour terminology and identification of focal hues. She feels that "use of this chart exemplifies one of the mistakes commonly made by the social sciences: that of taking data-sets as defining a (laboratory) phenomenon which supposedly represents the real world", and entails "taking a picture of the world for the world and then claiming that that picture is the concept". Finally, she takes issue with the anomalous cases of colour term use that she believes Berlin, Kay and Merrifield disregarded in their work on the World Colour Survey for the purpose of purifying their results [9, p.145].

In Saunders' 1997 article with van Brakel, they criticize the amount of weight given to the study of physiological colour perception as support for the universalism of colour terminology. They primarily criticize the idea that there is an autonomous neuro-physiological colour pathway, citing a lack of concrete evidence for its existence [9, p.439].

Saunders is also bothered by the overall de-contextualization of colour terminology and the failure of universalists to address the limitations of their methodologies. She points out that:

“Ordinary colour talk is used in a variety of ways – for flat coloured surfaces, surfaces of natural objects, patches of paintings, transparent objects, shining objects, the sky, flames, illumination, vapours, volumes, films and so on, all of which interact with overall situation, illumination, edges, textures, patternings and distances, making the concept of sameness of colour inherently indeterminate”[9, p.459].

John A. Lucy's criticisms of Berlin and Kay's theory are similar to those of Saunders and other relativists, primarily focusing on shortcomings in research methodologies and the assumptions that underlie them.

Lucy believes that there are problems with how linguistic analysis has been used to characterize the meanings of colour terms across languages. Referential range (what a colour term can refer to) and grammatical distribution (how the term can be used) are two dimensions Lucy believes are critical to defining the meaning of a term, both of which “are routinely ignored in research on colour terms which focuses primarily on denotational overlap across languages without any consideration of the typical use of the terms or their formal status”[10, p.612]. He also feels that any attempt to contrast colour term systems requires understanding of each individual language and the systems it uses to structure reference.

Lucy also believes that there is significant bias present in the design of Berlin and Kay's research, due to their English-speaking and Western points of view. He thinks the use of the Munsell colour system demonstrates their adherence to the ideas that "speech is about labeling accuracy" and that "Meaning is really about accurate denotation," which he believes "...both derive directly from the folk understandings of English speakers about how their language works." He refers to Conklin's study of Hanunóo as a demonstration of what a study might reveal about a language's colour term system when such bias is not present [10, p.324]. He demonstrates that “an 'adequate knowledge' of the system would never have been produced by restricting the stimuli to colour chips and the task of labeling” (original emphasis).

In summation, he feels that the approach universalists have taken in researching colour term universals sets up a procedure that “...guarantees both their discovery and their form”, and that, “it does not really even matter whether the researchers involved are open-minded and consciously willing to recognize relativism as a possible outcome—because the universalist conclusion is guaranteed by their methodological assumptions” [10, p.375].

In science, there are different approaches to the study colour terms. Among the most known and important are: anthropological (Berlin, B, P. Kay), psychological (I.Rosh, N.V.Serov, B.A.Bazyma) and gender (RT Lakoff, EV Mishenkina) approaches, as well as the lingo - cultural approach ( A.Vezhbitskaya, L.I.Isaeva, Sh.K. Zharkynbekova, etc.).

The anthropological approach. As it mentioned above, British scientists B. Berlin and P. Kay conducted a series of studies and concluded that the process of the emergence and development of colour terms in different languages ​​is a kind of language universals. B. Berlin and P. Kay studied the etymology of colour and describe their research in the book "Basic colour terms". After processing the extensive linguistic material (data about 80 languages ​​of different language families), Berlin and Kay made the following conclusions: there are universal laws of device systems basic colour terms in the languages ​​of the world.

Psychological approach. Psychology examines the colour and colour sensations as one of the specific reactions of the eye and brain to light frequency fluctuations. The paradox of the colour is that the colour embodies the possibility of logical and sensory-shaped ways of knowing the world. This is due to the fact that the right and left hemispheres of the brain prefer different parts of the spectrum and create different colour models:

1) The nature of the right brain is focused on the long wavelength part of the spectrum (red), and outputs a colour picture associated with sensory perception;

2) The left hemisphere is focused on medium wavelength of the spectrum (blue) and produces a colour picture associated with the conceptual complex [11, p.45].

In addition, psychologists consider the connection of colour with human emotions: each emotion has its own place in the colour space, emotion corresponds to a specific colour, and each colour causes strictly certain emotions.

A special place in a psychological approach to the study of colour is the work of Max Luscher “ Colour as an instrument of psycho-diagnostics”, as well as Colour test of Luscher. Max Lüscher discovered that the perception of colour is objective and universally for all, but individual preferences in the choice of colours are subjective. Thus, according to psycho-physiological characteristics of M. Lusher [12, p.56-59], red is warm and thick, has an irritating effect on the psyche.

This colour is characterized by the "will power", activity and struggle. Orange with prolonged observation creates a sense of well being and stimulates the appetite, it is characterized by impulsivity. Yellow draws attention, lingers long in the memory, is a major factor of nerve stimulators. The yellow colour is characterized by looseness, hope and faith in the future.

Green is the most familiar to the organs of sight, it is considered the best, has a calming effect on the psyche. Love to the green colour characterizes the operability of people, it means perseverance and dedication. Blue colour has a calming effect, which, however, can transform into a depressing.

Also, the colour is characterized by appeasement, devotion, calmness and vulnerability. Gray is sadness, loneliness, is separating and is fenced off. Brown can improve attention, stored long in the memory.

In addition, some researchers note emotional impact of colour combinations on the human psyche as well as the relation to the colour is often characterized by mutual arrangement of the colour. [12, p.60].

Linguo - cultural approach. Colour is one of the constants or one of the principles of the culture that can serve as "a model of development that maps the path of formation, development, consolidation in the cultural memory not only common, but also the national painted culturally significant concepts" [13, p.109]. Numerous phenomena of the culture cannot be understood without regard to the colour values.

Colour serves as one of the main categories of culture, "fixing unique information about the colour scheme of the surrounding nature, the uniqueness of the historical path of the people, the interaction of different ethnic traditions, especially the artistic vision of the world" [13, p.109]. Since colour is a component of culture, it is surrounded by a system of associations, meanings, interpretations; colour becomes the embodiment of diverse moral and aesthetic values.

Colour plays an essential role in the culture. Colour can be represented as emotion, "enriched with a variety of associations, enshrined in the linguistic and socio-cultural practice" [13, p.110]. The colour can be expressed by the relationship of man to the phenomena of nature. Colour serves as a meaningful element of culture that can be used to describe, organize things, attitudes and moral and aesthetic concepts. For example, the Polish word comes “ niebieski ” from the word “ niebo ”- “ sky ”, and Latin word “caerulus “ is derived from the Latin the “caelum” – “sky”. Words such as blue, aoi (Japanese), niebieski are semantically related to the concept of “ colour ”, but they are not equal in the meaning, because of the use of the range - each word has its own.[14, p.257].

Gender approach. A gender approach to the study of colour terms was considered by R.Lakoff. She identified differences between male and female colour terms, and the men has much less. Lakoff says that the linguistic behavior of the female is imperfect to the male. This fact is based on the discrepancies in social status of men and women. Men colour terms are more specific. In this aspect is also provided the consideration of the colour ratio with masculine and feminine [15, p.69].

Thus, “ nowadays red is usually associated with the male active principle, with blood and fire" [16, p.38]. Green colour, the author also acknowledges assigned to the masculine, because it is a symbol of fertility and symbolizes the situation that awakens consciousness.