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The power of colour term precision

The use of non-basic colour terms in nineteenth-century English travelogues about northern Scandinavia
  • Anders Steinvall
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New Directions in Colour Studies
This chapter is in the book New Directions in Colour Studies

Abstract

In this paper I analyze and discuss the effects of the use of specific colour vocabulary employed by five English-speaking travelogue writers visiting northern Scandinavia in the nineteenth century. The number of different colour terms (types) and their frequency of occurrence (tokens) as well as the objects they describe are presented and analyzed. The results show that the objects described most often with specific colour vocabulary are natural objects in the landscape. I argue that this use of colour precision in the discourse can be viewed as reflecting two aspects: first, a desire to add attributes such as exoticness and exclusiveness to the narrative as they are readily available associations in many terms; second, the writers’ engagement and involvement in the landscape they travel through, as the use of specific terminology can be very clearly linked to the writers’ opinions about what is described.

Abstract

In this paper I analyze and discuss the effects of the use of specific colour vocabulary employed by five English-speaking travelogue writers visiting northern Scandinavia in the nineteenth century. The number of different colour terms (types) and their frequency of occurrence (tokens) as well as the objects they describe are presented and analyzed. The results show that the objects described most often with specific colour vocabulary are natural objects in the landscape. I argue that this use of colour precision in the discourse can be viewed as reflecting two aspects: first, a desire to add attributes such as exoticness and exclusiveness to the narrative as they are readily available associations in many terms; second, the writers’ engagement and involvement in the landscape they travel through, as the use of specific terminology can be very clearly linked to the writers’ opinions about what is described.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface ix
  4. Abbreviations xi
  5. Section 1. Theoretical issues
  6. Illusions of colour and shadow 3
  7. Universal trends and specific deviations 13
  8. Touchy-Feely colour 27
  9. Towards a semiotic theory of basic colour terms and the semiotics of Juri Lotman 39
  10. Section 2. Languages of the world
  11. Preface to Section 2 51
  12. Basic colour terms of Arabic 53
  13. Red herrings in a sea of data 59
  14. Towards a diachrony of Maltese basic colour terms 73
  15. Rosa Schätze – Pink zum kaufen 91
  16. Kashubian colour vocabulary 105
  17. Colour terms 121
  18. Preliminary research on Turkish basic colour terms with an emphasis on blue 133
  19. Terms for red in Central Europe 147
  20. Section 3. Colour in society
  21. Preface to Section 3 159
  22. Colours in the community 161
  23. Hues and cries 171
  24. Colour appearance in urban chromatic studies 181
  25. Aspects of armorial colours and their perception in medieval literature 191
  26. Warm, cool, light, dark, or afterimage 205
  27. The power of colour term precision 219
  28. Section 4. Categorical perception of colour
  29. Preface to Section 4 235
  30. Investigating the underlying mechanisms of categorical perception of colour using the event-related potential technique 237
  31. Category training affects colour discrimination but only in the right visual field 251
  32. Effects of stimulus range on color categorization 265
  33. Section 5. Individual differences in colour vision
  34. Preface to Section 5 279
  35. Colour and autism spectrum disorders 281
  36. Red-Green dichromats’ use of basic colour terms 293
  37. Synaesthesia in colour 309
  38. Towards a phonetically-rich account of speech-sound → colour synaesthesia 319
  39. Perceiving “grue” 329
  40. Section 6. Colour preference and colour meaning
  41. Preface to Section 6 345
  42. Age-dependence of colour preference in the U.K. population 347
  43. Ecological valence and human color preference 361
  44. Look and learn 377
  45. Effects of lightness and saturation on color associations in the Mexican population 389
  46. Colour and emotion 395
  47. Colors and color adjectives in the cortex 415
  48. Section 7. Colour vision science
  49. Preface to Section 7 431
  50. Chromatic perceptual learning 433
  51. Unique hues 445
  52. A short note on visual balance judgements as a tool for colour appearance matching 457
  53. Index 459
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.167.25ste

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface ix
  4. Abbreviations xi
  5. Section 1. Theoretical issues
  6. Illusions of colour and shadow 3
  7. Universal trends and specific deviations 13
  8. Touchy-Feely colour 27
  9. Towards a semiotic theory of basic colour terms and the semiotics of Juri Lotman 39
  10. Section 2. Languages of the world
  11. Preface to Section 2 51
  12. Basic colour terms of Arabic 53
  13. Red herrings in a sea of data 59
  14. Towards a diachrony of Maltese basic colour terms 73
  15. Rosa Schätze – Pink zum kaufen 91
  16. Kashubian colour vocabulary 105
  17. Colour terms 121
  18. Preliminary research on Turkish basic colour terms with an emphasis on blue 133
  19. Terms for red in Central Europe 147
  20. Section 3. Colour in society
  21. Preface to Section 3 159
  22. Colours in the community 161
  23. Hues and cries 171
  24. Colour appearance in urban chromatic studies 181
  25. Aspects of armorial colours and their perception in medieval literature 191
  26. Warm, cool, light, dark, or afterimage 205
  27. The power of colour term precision 219
  28. Section 4. Categorical perception of colour
  29. Preface to Section 4 235
  30. Investigating the underlying mechanisms of categorical perception of colour using the event-related potential technique 237
  31. Category training affects colour discrimination but only in the right visual field 251
  32. Effects of stimulus range on color categorization 265
  33. Section 5. Individual differences in colour vision
  34. Preface to Section 5 279
  35. Colour and autism spectrum disorders 281
  36. Red-Green dichromats’ use of basic colour terms 293
  37. Synaesthesia in colour 309
  38. Towards a phonetically-rich account of speech-sound → colour synaesthesia 319
  39. Perceiving “grue” 329
  40. Section 6. Colour preference and colour meaning
  41. Preface to Section 6 345
  42. Age-dependence of colour preference in the U.K. population 347
  43. Ecological valence and human color preference 361
  44. Look and learn 377
  45. Effects of lightness and saturation on color associations in the Mexican population 389
  46. Colour and emotion 395
  47. Colors and color adjectives in the cortex 415
  48. Section 7. Colour vision science
  49. Preface to Section 7 431
  50. Chromatic perceptual learning 433
  51. Unique hues 445
  52. A short note on visual balance judgements as a tool for colour appearance matching 457
  53. Index 459
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