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Part of
Cultural Keywords in Discourse
Edited by Carsten Levisen and Sophia Waters
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 277] 2017
► pp. 131–156

Chapter 6
Visuality, identity and emotion]

Rosa mexicano as a Mexican Spanish keyword

| Aarhus University

This chapter presents a semantic and ethnopragmatic analysis of the Mexican Spanish colour word rosa mexicano. This word functions as a symbol of Mexican identity and serves as a cultural keyword for Mexican Spanish speakers. This word appears in a variety of discourses, such as, international and cross-cultural relations, the arts, education and discursive representations of national self-perception. After providing a semantic analysis of the meaning of the word, the analysis moves on to an ethnopragmatic examination, articulating cultural scripts for the visual, identificational and emotional meanings associated with rosa mexicano discourse.

Keywords: rosa mexicano , visual semantics, Mexican Spanish colour terms, colour terms as cultural keywords
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Colour and visual semantics in Mexican Spanish
  • 3.The semantics of rosa mexicano
    • 3.1 Rosa mexicano in discourse
      • 3.1.1Official Mexican discourses
      • 3.1.2Discourse of art and architecture
      • 3.1.3Educational discourse
      • 3.1.4Media discourse
      • 3.1.5 Rosa mexicano in international and intercultural discourse
    • 3.2Mexican cultural scripts
  • 4.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 October 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.277.06ara
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