Color associations
by Olga Dmitrieva
Tomsk State University, Russia
Red, blue, yellow etc. are not just colors. The are emotions, feelings, memories, reflections, associations. They play a very important role of sings or symbols. Seeing a color or thinking about color produces a certain reactions in our mind. If this association is quite stable and regular it becomes a part of the mantic structure of the color-word. Clo Indo-European languages such as Russian and English have more or less similar system of color terms. Nevertheless Russian and English color terms denoting the same colors might have different components in their mantics. One of the best ways to find out what is universal and what is nationally specific in how we react to color is to perform a psycholinguistic experiment. The psychologists believe that there is a mental model of color which is always prenting in our mind, so eing the color or thinking about it doesn’t make any difference in terms of our psychological reaction, since when we think about certain color our mind immediately finds the corresponding color model. Hence we may u the color terms as well as color itlf as a stimulus in the experiment. In the cour of the experiment Russian and English speaking respondents
were asked to write all the associations which occurred to them as a reaction to eing the following color terms:
White / Beliy
Black / Cherniy
Red / Krasniy
Green / Zelieniy
Yellow / Zheltiy
Blue / Siniy
Goluboy (light blue – only for Russian respondents)
Brown / Korichneviy
Grey / Seriy
Pink / Rozoviy
Orange / Oranzheviy
资源与评价
Purple / Fioletoviy
The technique of “free association” was ud as the most effective way to reveal the spectrum of possible associations to the color terms: the respondents were not given any time or subject restrictions – the number of associations and their domain was not limited. There were 20 Russian and 17 English respondents who took part in the experiment. As a stimuli we cho so called basic color terms – a number of the color-words which were considered to be “basic” by the native speakers. The criteria for identifying basic color terms are still not quite clear although any native speaker can name them without any difficulty. The composition of the Russian and English basic color terms is quite similar except for Russian goluboy (light blue). There is no corresponding English color term since English blue covers both light blue and dark blue color fields.
缺金取名The final purpo of the experiment is to define the components of the mantic structure of the color terms and to establish differences and similarities in Russian and English color concepts.
As a result of free association method the findings are very diver. For an adequate interpretation of the results an appropriate classification is needed. To do this we first of all divide all the findings in
to universal and situational categories.
The universal associations are usually expresd with a help of one or two words. They are highly frequent and as a rule have no correspondence to the personal experience of the respondent (e. g. sun, happy).
The situational associations are much more rare, they are often more extended – a phra or a ntence – and have a straight connection with personal feelings and memories of the respondent (e. g. my living room – my favorite color, the towels my mom gave me when I went to college – they were hot pink).
The universal associations are the most important for us since they show a stable and regular reaction to the color term and therefore they rve as a significant component of the mantic structure of the word. The more universal associations a color term evokes the richer mantics it has. The color terms with the richest mantics can be ud in a larger number of the contexts and conquently play a greater role in the national language.
Secondly, all the associations may also be divided into abstract (e. g. anger) and concrete (e. g. blood) categories.
Thirdly we have materia l, nsory and emotional associations. Material associations denote objects (e. g. apple). Sensory associations deal with the process of perception (e. g. warm – tactile perception, bright – visual perception). Emotional associations convey feelings, emotions (e. g. passion, shame).
As an example we will analyze the associations for the word red / krasniy. In the following table the whole t of red-related associations is prented. Despite the smaller number of English speaking respondents as compare to Russian, they gave more associations to red then the Russian respondents.
Color term
Associations Number
Color
term
Associations Number Stop5Krov (blood)7
Hot5Stast (passion)5 Anger (angry)4Flag, znamia (flag)4 Blood4Opasnost (danger)3
Danger4Bik (bull)3
Fire3Zvet svetafora (traffic light)2
Ros3Agressia (aggression)2
Heat2Yabloko (apple)2“In the red”2Zhar (heat)
Apple, juicy apple2Predatelstvo (betrayal) Bright Privlekatelnost (appeal)
Colorful Bol (pain)
Barns Pydjak (jacket)
Squirrels Sovrashenie (ducing)
Rubies Otkrovenie (revelation)
Warm Pobeda (victory)
Grapefruit中国歌曲
Serp i molot (Sickle and
Hammer)
White Lubov-morkov (love)
Life Korrida (corrida)
Hot woman in dress Krasota (beauty)
Bullfighter Prazdnichnost (holiday) Wine Ogon (fire)
Love Zvety (flowers)
Spicy Mak (poppy)
健康的英文怎么写Exclamation Zapret (prohibition)
Caution Zrelost (maturity)
秦中吟
国庆节寄语Vibrant Stop
Sex Extaz (ecstasy)
Ros left on a
mountain
Zhelanie videlitsiy, privlech
vnimanie (a desire to attract
attention, be notable) Aggressive
Samouverennost (lf-
assurance)
Bad Revoluzia (revolution)
Pretty Zakat (sunt)
Communism Deviza (lass)
Red
58
Alarm Krasniy
62
Roza (ro)
Shame Pomidor (tomato) Scarlet letter Yad (poison)
Devils Zapretniy plod (forbidden
fruit)
Red Square Platie (dress)
Passion Pil (ardour)
Emergency Znachimost (magnitude)
Sunt
Cherries
Life savers
Jelly bean
Zit
Bull
Siren
唐诗鉴赏辞典Restriction
No, negative
Felt pen
Coffee bean
Kidney bean
Negligee
Burning
Autumn
Attention
We consider associations to be universal if they appear in the list more then once or they appear both in Russian and English lists. As a result of this “universality” has two levels:“national” and “international” universality. Looking for the Russian-English corresponding universal associations we were taking into consideration not only full lexical equivalents, but also the words belonging to the same mantic field. For example we have the words bik and bull which are full lexical equivalents. However there are also words bullfighter and korrida (corrida) which to our opinion belong to the same mantic field. So we put all the words into the universal associations group. The same is true with the English association stop and Russian zvet svetafora (traffic light). The words have different lexical expressions but the same mantic meaning – that is why they both go to the univer
sal associations. Other examples of this are communism and revoluzia (revolution), x and sovrashenie (ducing), exclamation and zhelanie videlitsiy, privlech vnimanie (a desire to attract attention, be notable), restriction and zapret (prohibition).
If the association appears in the situational group, in most cas it means that a respondent has some personal reactions to the color according to his/her character, temper, experience, social, age and educational position. Nevertheless in certain cas knowing the cultural background of the respondent we are able to define a specifically national association. For
example, Russian Serp I Molot (Sickle and Hammer) refers to one of the very popular Soviet emblem symbolizing the union of workers and peasants.
In the following two tables you can e the categorized Russian and English associations for red.
English:
Associations
Universal Situational
Concrete Abstract Abstract Concrete Material Sensory Danger Life Sensory Material
Blood Hot“in the red”Caution White Barns
鸡胗的营养价值
Fire Heat Exclamation Vibrant Spicy Squirrels
Ros Warm Communism Emergency Siren Rubies
Apple Burning Sex No, negative Bright Grapefruit
Bullfighter Sunt Restriction Autumn Colorful Hot woman in dress Bull Stop Attention Wine
Pretty Alarm Ros left on a mountain
Emotional Emotional Scarlet letter
Anger Shame Red Devils
Love Bad Red Square
Aggressive Cherries
Passion Life savers
Jelly bean
Zit
Felt pen
Coffee bean
Kidney bean
Negligee Russian:
Associations
Universal Situational
Concrete Abstract Abstract Concrete
Material Sensory Sovrashenie
(ducing)
Predatelstvo
(betrayal)
Sensory Material
Krov (blood)Zvet svetafora
(traffic light)
Opasnost
(danger)
Otkrovenie
(revelation)
Bol (Pain)
Pidjak
(Jacket)
Bik (bull)Zhar (heat)Privlekatelnost
(appeal)
Pobeda
(victory)
Zveti
(flowers)
