COLOUR SYSTEMS
المؤلف:
John Field
المصدر:
Psycholinguistics
الجزء والصفحة:
P65
2025-08-07
451
COLOUR SYSTEMS
All human beings have similar perceptual systems; yet languages vary in the way in which they divide up the spectrum. This provides a test case for linguistic determinism. Does language simply provide a set of convenient categories or does it affect the way in which colours are actually perceived?
Research by Berlin and Kay (1969) suggested that focal points (prototypes) for particular colours are not only shared by speakers of the same language, but are also shared across languages. There was agreement on ‘typical values’ even where a language possessed fewer colour terms than English. This finding was supported by later research on naive subjects (English-speaking young children and speakers of Dugum Dani, which has only two basic colour terms). Focal colours were said to be perceptually more salient, more accurately remembered and more rapidly named.
A second finding by Berlin and Kay was that there were restrictions on which colours can appear in a colour system. They claimed that a two-colour system could only have white and black (effectively, light and dark); while a three-colour system added red. Next was a five colour system, adding green and yellow. The maximum system was said to be one of eleven basic colours, like the English one.
There are some problems with the data on which this second finding was based. There are also problems in simply counting the number of colour terms, when languages vary in the importance which they attach to hue, brightness and saturation. Furthermore, the maximum figure of eleven colours has been challenged: Hungarian and Russian have twelve.
See also: Concept, Linguistic relativity
Further reading: Berlin and Kay (1969); Palmer (1981: 71–5); Ungerer and Schmid (1996)
الاكثر قراءة في Linguistics fields
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