к.ф.н. Шингарева М.Ю., магистрант Айдарова А.А.

Региональный социально-инновационный университет

The dominant theory of color terminology

The history of color terms starts from the pubication of Basic Color Terms by Berlin and Kay in 1969.. Broadly speaking, the research after 1969 can be divided into two categories.

• Research accepting the general basis of the Berlin and Kay theory.

This research typically tests the hypothesis on new material or applies new methods to confirm the theory.

• Research rejecting the whole premise of the Berlin and Kay theory.

The first category is considerably larger.

The privileged position of Basic Color Terms should become clear if we describe the prevailing doctrine at the time of its publication. A cornerstone of post- Saussurean linguistics is that of the arbitrary nature of meaning. This idea had its sequel in the doctrine of relativism, the prime example of which is the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis. In linguistics, it was long argued that the domain of colour was the area par excellence for illustration of the arbitrary nature of language. Bloomfield’s (1933:140) statement, cited below, was a commonplace of the time as we find similar claims made by other authors, including Gleason (1962) in his classic textbook.

Physicists view the color spectrum as a continuous scale of light waves of different lengths, ranging from 40 to 72 hundred-thousandths of a millimeter, but languages mark off different parts of this scale quite arbitrarily and without precise limits, in the meaning of such color-names as violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red and the color names of different languages do not embrace the same gradations.

The view expressed by Bloomfield was widely accepted in linguistics for many decades. Studies performed in this tradition are, for example, Conklin (1964) and Lenneberg and Roberts (1956).

It was in fact the aim of Berlin and Kay (1969) (henceforth B&K) to refute this belief in relativity. Despite many studies demonstrating that the colour spectrum was divided in various ways, Berlin and Kay hypothesised that there was an underlying pattern of universality. They wrote (1969:2): “We suspect that this allegation of total arbitrariness in the way languages segment the color space is a gross overstatement.” In order to demonstrate this, they designed an experiment based on a number of assumptions which were given axiomatic status.

• Not all colour terms have equal status; there are basic colour terms (henceforth BCTs), and such a term can be defined by a few criteria. These criteria are: a) it is monolexemic, i.e. the meaning is not predictable from its parts; b) its signification is not included in that of any other colour term; c) its application is not restricted to a narrow class of objects; d) it must be psychologically salient for the informants - e.g. show a tendency to occur early in elicited lists, stability of reference across informants and occasions of use, and occurrence in the idiolects of all informants. (B&K: 6)

• There is an internal gradation in colour categories, which means that it is possible to isolate a focus of the category - a best example.

• The denotatum of a colour term is fully described by the three dimensions hue, lightness and saturation.

Although not explicitly stated, these axioms were in fact already part of an established tradition of studies in colour terminology. As far as the first axiom is concerned, B&K pointed out that the notion of basic colour terms had long been a working assumption in linguistics and anthropology, although not properly defined.

The notion appeared in the work of Lenneberg and his associates (e.g. Brown and Lenneberg 1954; Lenneberg and Roberts 1956) and also in the work of Conklin (1964). Consequently, as they saw it, their achievement in this respect was only to give it a “unique operational definition.” Regarding the second axiom, Lenneberg and Roberts (1956: 16) make the following observation about the existence of a focus of colour categories:

[I]t appears that some stimuli are more likely to elicit a given verbal response than others. One can think, for example, of a color which is more typically yellow than another [...] We shall use the term focus to describe that cluster of stimuli which has an extremely high probability of eliciting one distinct verbal response.

Concerning the third axiom, B&K were well aware that Conklin (1964), for instance, had demonstrated that there were other dimensions of meaning associated with colour terms, e.g., succulence and desiccation. However, in their quest for the underlying pattern they argued that associations of that kind would have to be ignored. Again, this approach was anticipated by Lenneberg and Roberts (1956:14) who make similar reservations:

Since we are proposing to use the three perceptual dimensions as metalanguage in terms of which the referent of any color term can be described, we might pause to ask to what extent the coordinate system arising from the use of these dimensions might itself be culture bound. Two questions are involved: the first is whether the dimensions (hue, brightness, and saturation) are universally applicable. For the time being, we may leave the first question unanswered, recognizing, of course, that there is nothing “natural, logical, or necessary” in these dimensions. For our purposes, they are measuring sticks which can be conveniently used in describing cross-cultural similarities or differences.

Although Lenneberg and Roberts suggest that there is nothing “natural” in the dimensions, they have been treated exactly in that way since then. B&K (1969:160, footnote 2), for instance, refer to them as “the three psychophysical dimensions: hue, saturation, and brightness.” Today, most researchers seem to treat these dimensions as natural and universal dimensions grounded in physiological perception.

On the basis of the above-mentioned axiomatic assumptions, B&K asked native speakers of twenty languages to map the focal points and outer boundaries of each BCT in their language on an array of 329 Munsell colour chips. This procedure and material had been used in an almost identical form in another classic study, the aforementioned Lenneberg and Roberts (1956). They, however, had used a much larger inventory of colour terms (52 terms) and did not use achromatic chips (cf. B&K, p 103.). Subsequent to the empirical study and the analysis of the results, a third, heavily criticised, step in the study was added - a study of the literature concerning previously documented colour studies. On the basis of such studies, combined with studies of various types of lexicons and dictionaries, B&K established the BCTs of an additional 78 languages, reaching a total of 98 languages.

In sum, it can be claimed that B&K’s achievement was not based on novel methodology, nor on the postulation of radical axioms. Their study was quite traditional, in these respects, but what was actually new was the wide contrastive approach and, in particular, the equation of colour category to focus. B&K (1969: 13) write: “[W]henever we speak of colour categories, we refer to the foci of categories, rather than to their boundaries or total area ... [italics original].” Even though the focal element had been recognised earlier no one had previously taken this radical step.

The results of their investigation were revolutionary in at least three respects.

• First, B&K succeeded in confirming their hypothesis; they claim that they have been able to show that “color categorisation is not random and the foci of basic color terms are similar in all languages.” (1969: 10)

• Second, which came as a surprise to B&K, there appears to be a universal process, which stipulates a fixed order in which BCTs are encoded in a language. B&K suggested that this process could be reduced to a typology of seven stages (cf. Figure 1 below). They observed that of a possible 2,048 patterns only twenty-two combinations occurred in their material.

I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII PURPLE
WHITE		GREEN	GREEN			PINK
and	RED	or	and	BLUE	BROWN	ORANGE
BLACK		YELLOW	YELLOW			GREY

Figure 1. Berlin and Kay’s 1969 typology of seven stages.

• Third, apart from some doubtful cases (notably, Hungarian and Russian) no language seems to have more than eleven BCTs.

Berlin and Kay’s (1969: 104) own summary of these results provides us further indication of what they claimed to have found:

As MacLaury (1997: 20-21) points out in his summary of Basic Color Terms, the view of the authors would seem to be that BCTs are universal “because neurology determines that there is no other way to see.” The use of the terms psychophysical and perceptual category above indicates this. In this view, the illusion of cross- linguistic relativity is created through the different number of BCTs, which frequently lead to differences among boundaries. Other elements adding to the perceived picture of relativism are the presence of non-basic terms and connotations. Instead we have a theory which could be given the label evolutionary determinism, since it suggests (cf. the quote above) that there are universal perceptual colour categories just waiting to be lexicalised.

Literature:

1. Bloomfield, L. 1933. Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

2. Berlin, B. and P. Kay 1969. Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.

3. Lenneberg, E.H. and J.M. Roberts 1956. The Language of Experience: A Study in Methodology. Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics. Memoir 13: supplement to International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. 22, no. 2. Baltimore: Waverley Press Inc.

4. Maclaury, R. 1995. Vantage Theory. In Taylor, J.R. and R.E. MacLaury (eds.), 231-276.