Anthropology of Color

Interdisciplinary multilevel modeling

Editors

Robert E. MacLaury | University of Pennsylvania

Galina V. Paramei | Technische Universität Darmstadt

Don Dedrick | University of Guelph

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027232434 | EUR 130.00 | USD 195.00

e-Book – Open Access Download from our e-platform

ISBN 9789027291707

The field of color categorization has always been intrinsically multi- and inter-disciplinary, since its beginnings in the nineteenth century. The main contribution of this book is to foster a new level of integration among different approaches to the anthropological study of color. The editors have put great effort into bringing together research from anthropology, linguistics, psychology, semiotics, and a variety of other fields, by promoting the exploration of the different but interacting and complementary ways in which these various perspectives model the domain of color experience. By so doing, they significantly promote the emergence of a coherent field of the anthropology of color.

As of February 2018, this e-book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched.

[Not in series, 137] 2007. xx, 485 pp.

Publishing status: Available
Published online on 1 July 2008

Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

https://doi.org/10.1075/z.137

Table of Contents

Foreword

Luisa Maffi | pp. vii–ix

Color naming research in its many forms and guises

Don Dedrick and Galina V. Paramei | pp. xi–xv

Part I: Color perception

Hue categorization and color naming: Cognition to language to culture

Marc H. Bornstein | pp. 3–27

Individual and population differences in focal colors

Michael A. Webster and Paul Kay | pp. 29–53

Russian color names: Mapping into a perceptual color space

Olga V. Safuanova and Nina N. Korzh | pp. 55–74

Russian 'blues': Controversies of basicness

Galina V. Paramei | pp. 75–106

Colour term research of Hugo Magnus

Roger Schöntag and Barbara Schäfer-Prieß | pp. 107–122

Part II: Color cognition

Categories of desaturated-complex color: Sensorial, perceptual, and cognitive models

Robert E. MacLaury | pp. 125–150

Relative basicness of color terms: Modeling and measurement

Seija Kerttula | pp. 151–169

The ambiguity of brightness (with special reference to Old English) and a new model for colour description in semantics

Carole P. Biggam | pp. 171–187

Color naming in Estonian and cognate languages

Vilja Oja | pp. 189–209

Color terms in ancient Egyptian and Coptic

Wolfgang Schenkel | pp. 211–228

Basic color term evolution in the light of ancient evidence from the Near East

David A. Warburton | pp. 229–246

Basic color terms from Proto-Semitic to Old Ethiopic

Maria Bulakh | pp. 247–261

Towards a history and typology of color categorization in colloquial Arabic

Alexander Borg | pp. 263–293

Japanese color terms, from 400 C.E. to the present: Literature, orthography, and language contact in light of current cognitive theory

James Stanlaw | pp. 295–318

Color terms in Colonia Tovar, an Alemannisch Enclave in Venezuela

Albert C. Heinrich | pp. 319–324

Mien (Yao) color terms

Theraphan L-Thongkum | pp. 325–334

Part III: Color semiosis

The semiosis of Swedish car colour names: Descriptive and amplifying functions

Gunnar Bergh | pp. 337–345

Color and emotions in English

Anders Steinvall | pp. 347–362

Linguistic construal of colors: The case of Russian

Ekaterina V. Rakhilina | pp. 363–377

Color words in painting descriptions: Some linguistic evidence for entity-like conceptualization

Alena V. Anishchanka | pp. 379–393

Metaphors as cognitive models in Halkomelem color adjectives

Brent D. Galloway | pp. 395–403

Prototypical and stereotypical color in Slavic languages: Models based on folklore

Lyudmila Popovic | pp. 405–420

Colour terms in fashion

Dessislava Stoeva-Holm | pp. 421–439

To have color and to have no color: The coloring of the face in the Czech linguistic picture of the world

Irena Vanková | pp. 441–456

Gender, age, and descriptive color terminology in some Caucasus cultures

Liudmila V. Samarina | pp. 457–466

Towards a new topology of colour

Barbara Saunders | pp. 467–479

Index | pp. 481–485

“Nobody can tell where Rob MacLaury’s inquisitive mind would have led him in years to come in his passionate quest for an anthropology of color. But this collection is certainly a testament to what he had set out to accomplish. Galina Paramei and Don Dedrick are to be commended for seeing it through to publication and making it available to an interdisciplinary and international public that will no doubt benefit from it and further advance this complex and fascinating field.”

Luisa Maffi, in the Foreword to the volume

“This is an important volume for the breadth of collected papers it presents which share the focus of culture and perceptual color experience. The volume's contents span several disciplines and will appeal to readers of anthropology, linguistics, psychology, socio-cultural studies, and semiotics. Some of its articles present analyses of phenomena from languages and dialects that are quickly disappearing from the world; whereas others catalog more esoteric or ancient features of studied languages – quite possibly presenting the first thorough accounting of such features in an English language volume. The collected information contained in this volume is essential for understanding universal features in color perception and cognition as distinct from the culturally relative factors inherent in the phenomena.”

Kimberly A. Jameson, University of California, Irvine

“This collection of 26 original essays on color categorization is remarkable for its breadth: from individual perception and cognition to social construction, from the evolution of color terms in Greek, Coptic, and Japanese to the uses of color terms in fashion and the semiosis of Swedish car color names. Along with the work of established researchers in the field, we encounter gratifyingly many new voices and new perspectives from 14 countries and several disciplines. Here there is much to learn, to argue, and to ponder.”

Larry Hardin, prof. emer., Syracuse University

“Reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of the field, Anthropology of Color brings together a mixture of field summaries, tutorials and introductions to specialist areas, including anthropology, psychology, linguistics, design, philosophy etc. It also includes work from Eastern Europe which will be new to most readers from Western Europe and North America. Paramei and Dedrick have worked wonders bringing together a collection on this scale as well as both contributing excellent chapters. The book will become an essential addition to the personal libraries of workers in this very broad area and a mandatory acquisition for academic libraries. It will function as a handbook for the area, selected chapters will be used to guide new researchers and final year students, and even the curious general reader will find it tantalising.”

Ian Davies , University of Surrey, UK

“Discussions of colour cognition must be grounded in empirical evidence about how people actually use colour words. This volume contains such evidence, drawn from a range of language families and aspects of culture, and a variety of contemporary and historical sources. I was impressed by the multifaceted nature of colour research, and of colour language itself – its multiplicity of cultural associations and cultural expressions.”

David Bimler, Massey University, New Zealand

“[...] an impressively diverse collection and a testimony of what (forgive the pun) a colorful field color categorization is.”

Rick Nouwen, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics, Utrecht University, on Linguist List Vol. 18-3740

“[...] a fascinating and challenging collection of papers. The book is essential reading for researchers in the field of color naming and could also be captivating reading for those new to the area.”

Anna Franklin, in Color Research and Apllication, Vol. 33.4 (2008)

Cited by (36)

Cited by 36 other publications

Order by:

Simoncelli, Camilla, Philippe Gréa & Maria Kihlstedt

2024. From color naming to color perception: Cross‐linguistic differences of the chromatic information processing in monolingual and bilingual speakers. Color Research & Application

An, Hyosun, Kyo Young Lee, Yerim Choi & Minjung Park

2023. Conceptual framework of hybrid style in fashion image datasets for machine learning. Fashion and Textiles 10:1

Marutschke, Daniel Moritz

2023. 2023 IEEE 13th International Workshop on Computational Intelligence and Applications (IWCIA), ► pp. 57 ff.

Prusak, Błażej & Muhammad Mushafiq

2023. Colour Symbolism in Finance. Financial Internet Quarterly 19:4 ► pp. 49 ff.

Vorobyova, Mariya, Fabio Biffoli, Walter Giurlani, Stefano Mauro Martinuzzi, Maximilian Linser, Andrea Caneschi & Massimo Innocenti

2023. PVD for Decorative Applications: A Review. Materials 16:14 ► pp. 4919 ff.

Rakhilina, Ekaterina & Tatiana Reznikova

2022. Chapter 1. Introduction. In The Typology of Physical Qualities [Typological Studies in Language, 133], ► pp. 1 ff.

Stern, Julio Michael

2022. Color-Coded Epistemic Modes in a Jungian Hexagon of Opposition. In The Exoteric Square of Opposition [Studies in Universal Logic, ], ► pp. 303 ff.

Stern, Julio Michael

2024. Dynamic Oppositional Symmetries for Color, Jungian and Kantian Categories. Logica Universalis 18:1-2 ► pp. 235 ff.

Surov, Ilya A.

2022. Quantum core affect. Color-emotion structure of semantic atom. Frontiers in Psychology 13

Gamper, Markus & Michael Schönhuth

2020. Visual network research (VNR) – a theoretical and methodological appraisal of an evolving field. Visual Studies 35:4 ► pp. 374 ff.

Miller-Naudé, Cynthia L. & Jacobus A. Naudé

2020. Textual interrelationships involving the Septuagint translations of the precious stones in the breastpiece of the high priest. HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 76:4

Uusküla, Mari & David L. Bimler

2020. When does “bright” mean “prototypical”? Color-term modifiers in eight European languages, examined with color-survey data. Journal of the Optical Society of America A 37:5 ► pp. A305 ff.

Drabsch, Bernadette & Stephen Bourke

2019. Early Visual Communication: Introducing the 6000-Year-Old Buon Frescoes from Teleilat Ghassul, Jordan. Arts 8:3 ► pp. 79 ff.

Kalda, Anu & Mari Uusküla

2019. The Role of Context in Translating Colour Metaphors: An Experiment on English into Estonian Translation. Open Linguistics 5:1 ► pp. 690 ff.

Witzel, Christoph

2019. Misconceptions About Colour Categories. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 10:3 ► pp. 499 ff.

Lesnevskaya, Ekaterina

2018. FIGURATIVE CONSTITUENTS OF THE CONCEPT COLOR IN SPANISH AND UKRAINIAN (BASED ON FICTION TEXTS). Odessa Linguistic Journal :12 ► pp. 67 ff.

Loitšenko, Olga

2018. Chapter 15. Colour terms in the blue area among Estonian-Russian and Russian-Estonian bilinguals. In Progress in Colour Studies, ► pp. 285 ff.

Angelini, Anna

2017. Translating colors in antiquity: the semantics of κόκκινος in the Septuagint. Semitica et Classica 10 ► pp. 49 ff.

Osorio, Daniel

2017. Bogushevskaya, V., & Colla, E. (Eds.). Thinking Colours: Perception, Translation and Representation. Perception 46:10 ► pp. 1203 ff.

Ocelák, Radek

2016. “Categorical Perception” and Linguistic Categorization of Color. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7:1 ► pp. 55 ff.

Surrallés, Alexandre

2016. On contrastive perception and ineffability: assessing sensory experience without colour terms in an Amazonian society. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 22:4 ► pp. 962 ff.

Anishchanka, Alena V., Dirk Speelman & Dirk Geeraerts

2015. Usage-related variation in the referential range ofbluein marketing context. Functions of Language 22:1 ► pp. 20 ff.

Albertazzi, Liliana & Roberto Poli

2014. Multi-leveled objects: color as a case study. Frontiers in Psychology 5

Borg, Alexander

2014. Towards a historical and cultural atlas of colour terms in the Near East. In Colour Studies, ► pp. 31 ff.

Grandison, Alexandra, Ian R.L. Davies & Paul T. Sowden

2014. The evolution of GRUE. In Colour Studies, ► pp. 53 ff.

Oja, Vilja

2014. The motivational analysis of some Finnic colour terms. In Colour Studies, ► pp. 93 ff.

Wulff, Helena

2013. ways of Seeing ireland's green. The Senses and Society 8:2 ► pp. 233 ff.

Hacking, Ian

2010. Lloyd, Daston, Nurture, and 'Style'. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 35:3-4 ► pp. 231 ff.

Laughlin, Charles D. & Johannes H.N. Loubser

2010. Neurognosis, the Development of Neural Models, and the Study of the Ancient Mind. Time and Mind 3:2 ► pp. 135 ff.

Stanlaw, James

2010. Language, contact, and vantages: fifteen hundred years of Japanese color terms. Language Sciences 32:2 ► pp. 196 ff.

Stanlaw, James

2020. Color and Color Nomenclature. In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, ► pp. 1 ff.

Ogarkova, Anna & Philippe Borgeaud

2009. (Un)common denominators in research on emotion language: a postscript. Social Science Information 48:3 ► pp. 523 ff.

MacLaury, Robert E.

2005. So-Called Brightness in Color Ethnography: Potentials for LCD Technology in Fieldwork and Categorization Research. Cross-Cultural Research 39:2 ► pp. 205 ff.

[no author supplied]

2008. Books Received. Current Anthropology 49:3 ► pp. 534 ff.

[no author supplied]

2011. References. In Concise Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology, ► pp. 280 ff.

[no author supplied]

2015. Sensory Adjectives in the Discourse of Food [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 16],

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 september 2024. 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.

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