Cover not available
Part of
Lexicalization patterns in color naming: A cross-linguistic perspective
Edited by Ida Raffaelli, Daniela Katunar and Barbara Kerovec
[Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 78] 2019
► pp. 83–108

“Brightness” in color linguistics

New light from Danish visual semantics

| Roskilde University
This chapter scrutinizes the discourse of “brightness” in color linguistics. Drawing on insights from visual semantics and linguistic anthropology, and challenging the universal applicability of “brightness”, the study provides new evidence from Danish. The chapter provides a new analysis of the lexicogrammar and linguaculture of lys ‘light, brightness’ in relation to color. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach is used to provide detailed semantic explications for three grammatical devices based on lys (lys, lys-, and lyse-), along with an analysis of three Danish lys + color compounds lyserød, lysegrøn, and lyseblå. Based on the evidence from Danish and other studies in visual semantics, the chapter calls for a renewed focus on the non-chromatic aspects of visual meanings, and for a metalinguistic reform in color linguistics.
Keywords: color linguistics, brightness, visual semantics, Natural Semantic Metalanguage, Danish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Visual semantics
  • 3.Methods
    • Semantic primes
  • 4.Linguaculture and lexicogrammar
    • 4.1The meaning of lyserød
    • 4.2The meaning of lysegrøn
    • 4.3The meaning of lyseblå
    • 4.4Summary
  • 5.Back to “brightness”
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 9 October 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.78.05lev
References
Aragón, K.
(2016) Mexican Colors and Meanings: An Ethnolinguistic Study of Visual Semantics in Oaxaca. In G. Paulsen, M. Uusküla, & J. Brindle, (Eds.), Color Language and Color Categorisation (pp. 302–332). Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
(2017) Visuality, Identity and Emotion: Rosa Mexicano as a Mexican Spanish keyword. In C. Levisen, & S. Waters (Eds.), Cultural Keywords in Discourse [Pragmatics and Beyond New Series] (pp. 132–156). Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Berlin, B., & Kay, P.
(1969) Basic Color Terms. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Biggam, C.
(2007) The ambiguity of brightness (with special reference to Old English) and a new model for color description in semantics. In R. E. Maclaury, G. V. Paramei, & D. Dedrick (Eds.), The Anthropology of Colour: Interdisciplinary Multilevel Modelling (pp. 171–188). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biggam, C. P.
(2012) The Semantics of Colour: A historical approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bille, M.
(2015) Lighting up cosy atmospheres in Denmark. Emotion, Space and Society, 15, 56–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Casson, R. W.
(1997) Colour shift: evolution of English colour terms from lightness to hue. In C. L. Hardin, & L. Maffi (Eds.) Colour Categories in Thought and Language (pp. 224–239). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Friedrich, P.
(1989) Language, Ideology, and Political Economy. American Anthropologist, 91(2), 295–312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goddard, C., & Wierzbicka, A.
(2014) Words and Meanings: Lexical Semantics across Domains, Languages and Cultures. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goddard, C.
(2016) Semantic molecules and their role in NSM lexical definitions. Cahiers de Lexicologie, 2(109), 13–34.Google Scholar
Hill, C.
(2011) Named and Unnamed Places. Color, Kin, and the Environment in Umpila. The Senses and Society, 6, 57–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hjorth, E., Kristensen, K.. et al.
(2003) Den Danske Ordbog. Copenhagen: Det Danske Sprog‑ og Litteraturselskab. (DDO)Google Scholar
Johansen, J.
(2002) Det dufter lysegrønt af græs. In Den Danske Salmebog. Det Kgl. Vejsenhus Forlag.Google Scholar
Kay, P.
(2006 [1999]) Methodological Issues in Cross-Language Color Naming. In C. Jourdan & K. Tuite (Eds.), Language, Culture and Society (pp. 115–134). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kay, P., Berlin, B., Maffi, L., Merrifield, W. R., & Cook, R.
(2009) The World Colour Survey. Stanford: CSLI.Google Scholar
Lucy, J.
(1997) The linguistics of “color”. In C. L. Hardin & L. Maffi (Eds.), Color Categories in Thought and Language (pp. 320–346). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levisen, C.
(2012a) Cultural Semantics and Social Cognition: A Case Study on the Danish Universe of Meaning. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012b) “Reds” and “Pinks” in Scandinavia and beyond: Language as the key to the Ethnotheory of Colour. Handout, Departmental Lecture, Aarhus University, 6th June.Google Scholar
(2015) Scandinavian Semantics and the Human Body: An ethnolinguistic study in diversity and change. Language Sciences, 49, 51–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016) Postcolonial Lexicography: Defining Creole Emotion Words with the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Cahiers de Lexicologie, 109(2), 35–60.Google Scholar
(2017) Personhood Constructs in Language and Thought: New Evidence from Danish. In Z. Ye (Ed.), The Semantics of Nouns (pp. 120–144). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2018) Biases we live by. Anglocentrism in Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences. Language Sciences, Special Issue on Biases in Linguistics, Ed. by S. Borchmann, C. Levisen, and B. Schneider.Google Scholar
Levisen, C., & Jogie, M. R.
(2015) The Trinidadian Theory of Mind: Personhood and Postcolonial Semantics. International Journal of Language and Culture 2(2), 169–193. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levisen, C., Sippola, E., & Aragón, K.
(2016) Color and Visuality in Iberoromance Creoles. Towards a postcolonial semantic analysis. In G. Paulsen, M. Uusküla, & J. Brindle (Eds.), Color Language and Color Categorization (pp. 270–301). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Majid, A., Jordan, F., & Dunn, M.
(2015) Semantic systems in closely related languages. Language Sciences, 49, 1–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saunders, B.
(1992) The invention of basic colour terms. Utrecht: ISOR.Google Scholar
Saunders, B. A. C., & van Brakel, J.
(1997) Are there nontrivial constraints on colour categorization? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20 (2), 167–228. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saunders, B., & van Brakel, J.
(Eds.) (2002) Theories, technologies, instrumentalities of colour: Anthropological and historiographic perspectives. London: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Uusküla, M.
(2007) The basic colour terms of Finnish. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 20, 367–397.Google Scholar
Uusküla, M., Liivi, H., & Urmas S.
(2012) Basic colour terms in five Finno-Ugric languages and Estonian Sign Language: A comparative study. Journal of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics, 3(1), 47–86.Google Scholar
Uusküla, M., & Eessalu, M.
(2018) Glossy Black is not actually ‘Black’: Evidence from Psycholinguistic Colour-Naming Studies in 14 European Languages. Cultura e Scienza del Colore – Color Culture and Science Journal, 09, 39–44.Google Scholar
Uusküla, M., Hollman L., and Sutrop, U.
(2012) Basic color terms in five Finno-Ugric languages and Estonian Sign Language: A comparative study. Journal of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics 3(1), 47–86Google Scholar
Vejdemo, S., Levisen, C., Beck, T. G., von Scherpenberg, C., Næss, Å., Zimmerman, M., Stockall, L., & Whelpton, M.
(2015) Two Kinds of Pink: Development and Difference in Germanic Colour Semantics. Language Sciences, 49, 19–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vejdemo, S.
(2017) Triangulating perspectives on lexical replacement. From predictive statistical models to descriptive color linguistics. (Doctoral dissertation). Stockholm: Stockholm University.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A.
(2005) There are no 'color universals', but there are universals of visual semantics. Anthropological Linguistics, 47(2), 217–244.Google Scholar
(2006) The semantics of colour: A new paradigm. In: C. P. Biggam & C. J. Kay (Eds.), Progress in Colour Studies. Volume 1: Language and Culture . (pp. 1–24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008) Why there are no ‘colour universals’ in language thought. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 14, 407–425.Google Scholar
(2013) Imprisoned in English: The Hazards of English as a Default Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2018) Deconstructing “colour”, exploring indigenous meanings. In D. Young (Ed.), Rematerializing Colour: From concept to substance (pp. 67–90). Wantage, UK: Sean Kingston.Google Scholar
(1996) Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wong, J. O.
(2014) The Culture of Singapore English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zimmermann, M., Levisen, C., van Scherpenberg, C., & Beck, T. G.
(2015) Please pass me the skin colored crayon! Semantics, socialization, and folk models of race in contemporary Europe. Language Sciences, 49, 35–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Bordonaba-Plou, David & Laila M. Jreis-Navarro
2023. Light in Assessing Color Quality: An Arabic-Spanish Cross-Linguistic Study. In Experimental Philosophy of Language: Perspectives, Methods, and Prospects [Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, 33], ► pp. 151 ff. DOI logo
Gladkova, Anna
2020. The semantics of verbs of visual aesthetic appreciation in Russian. In Meaning, Life and Culture: In conversation with Anna Wierzbicka, ► pp. 155 ff. DOI logo
Levisen, Carsten
2021.  Pæn, flot, dejlig, and lækker . International Journal of Language and Culture 8:1 ► pp. 14 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 november 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.