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The spread of RED in the Historical Thesaurus of English

  • Marc Alexander and Christian Kay✝
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Colour Studies
This chapter is in the book Colour Studies

Abstract

The basic colour category red and its exponents occupies an important place in the development of colour vocabulary, whether in the evolution of colour perception, infant language learning, or the history of particular languages. This chapter focuses on the development of the red category in English using data from the Historical Thesaurus of English, which lists synonyms from the earliest English records until the present day. Comparison with other English BCCs shows that red has by far the largest number of exponents over history and the steepest increase in lexis in the modern period. The close relationship of red and pink, the youngest of the English BCCs, is also explored.

Abstract

The basic colour category red and its exponents occupies an important place in the development of colour vocabulary, whether in the evolution of colour perception, infant language learning, or the history of particular languages. This chapter focuses on the development of the red category in English using data from the Historical Thesaurus of English, which lists synonyms from the earliest English records until the present day. Comparison with other English BCCs shows that red has by far the largest number of exponents over history and the steepest increase in lexis in the modern period. The close relationship of red and pink, the youngest of the English BCCs, is also explored.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface ix
  4. Acknowledgements x
  5. Abbreviations xi
  6. Prehistoric colour semantics
  7. Prehistoric colour semantics 3
  8. Colour and Linguistics
  9. Preface to Section II 29
  10. Towards a historical and cultural atlas of colour terms in the Near East 31
  11. The evolution of GRUE 53
  12. Linguistic categorization of BLUE in Standard Italian 67
  13. From blood to worms 79
  14. The motivational analysis of some Finnic colour terms 93
  15. Her blue eyes are red 109
  16. The spread of RED in the Historical Thesaurus of English 126
  17. A metaphorical spectrum 140
  18. Exploring the metaphorical use of colour with the Historical Thesaurus of English 153
  19. Colour categorization, naming and preference
  20. Preface to Section III 167
  21. The case for infant colour categories 169
  22. Bornstein’s paradox (redux) 181
  23. Category effects on colour discrimination 200
  24. Colour category effects 212
  25. Gender differences in colour naming 225
  26. Personality and gender-schemata contributions to colour preferences 240
  27. Axiological aspects of Polish colour vocabulary 258
  28. The metaphysical significance of colour categorization 273
  29. Colour and the World
  30. Preface to Section IV 287
  31. Color seeing and speaking 291
  32. Colour terms in the names of coastal and inland features 307
  33. Referential meaning in basic and non-basic color terms 323
  34. Unfolding colour in mind and language 339
  35. Synaesthetic associations 352
  36. Bach to the blues 366
  37. “Miss Gartside’s immediate eye” 380
  38. Lighting up Shakespeare 397
  39. Index 413
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.191.08ale

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface ix
  4. Acknowledgements x
  5. Abbreviations xi
  6. Prehistoric colour semantics
  7. Prehistoric colour semantics 3
  8. Colour and Linguistics
  9. Preface to Section II 29
  10. Towards a historical and cultural atlas of colour terms in the Near East 31
  11. The evolution of GRUE 53
  12. Linguistic categorization of BLUE in Standard Italian 67
  13. From blood to worms 79
  14. The motivational analysis of some Finnic colour terms 93
  15. Her blue eyes are red 109
  16. The spread of RED in the Historical Thesaurus of English 126
  17. A metaphorical spectrum 140
  18. Exploring the metaphorical use of colour with the Historical Thesaurus of English 153
  19. Colour categorization, naming and preference
  20. Preface to Section III 167
  21. The case for infant colour categories 169
  22. Bornstein’s paradox (redux) 181
  23. Category effects on colour discrimination 200
  24. Colour category effects 212
  25. Gender differences in colour naming 225
  26. Personality and gender-schemata contributions to colour preferences 240
  27. Axiological aspects of Polish colour vocabulary 258
  28. The metaphysical significance of colour categorization 273
  29. Colour and the World
  30. Preface to Section IV 287
  31. Color seeing and speaking 291
  32. Colour terms in the names of coastal and inland features 307
  33. Referential meaning in basic and non-basic color terms 323
  34. Unfolding colour in mind and language 339
  35. Synaesthetic associations 352
  36. Bach to the blues 366
  37. “Miss Gartside’s immediate eye” 380
  38. Lighting up Shakespeare 397
  39. Index 413
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