| Jaromina Rakusan: | |
| Name: | Jaromina Rakusan |
| Academic Institution: | SLALS, Carleton University |
| email: | jrakusan@ccs.carleton.ca |
| Country: | Canada |
| Paper Title | Colour Metaphors in Cross-Cultural Spectrum: English, Latvian, Arabic, and Japanese |
| Abstract: | The cross-linguistic study of colour terminologies has become the paradigm case for demonstrating the effect of universal innate biological constraints on human categorization of the world. The relativist response to the universal constraints is that cultural practices are a crucial mediating force in colour naming and the use of the terms. The meaning of a colour term is its understanding, the culturally defined relations it engages and activates in a culturally constructed symbolic systems. The proposed paper is concerned with the occurrence and functions of colour terms in the context of similes and metaphors implementing the following underlying metaphoric scheme: Topic Ground Vehicle X is COLOURED as/ like Y The paper is organized as follows: - Colour terms entering metaphoric relations - Discussion of the semantic domains of Vehicle, i.e. the components considered to be typical carriers of particular colours. - Discussion of the semantic domains of Topic, i.e. the components to which particular colours are ascribed. - Mutual interaction between the topic and the vehicle (including their attributes) resulting in different types of symbolism of colours in terms of polarized values, such as GOOD vs. BAD, BEAUTIFUL vs. UGLY, DISTURBING vs. PEACEFUL, WARM vs. COLD. The principal analysis will be demonstrated on English data. However, additional corpora (Latvian, Arabic, Japanese) will be used for the demonstration of cross-cultural diversity. Quantitative statements, supporting the structural and semantic analysis of colour metaphors, are considered as important indicators of functional prominence and symbolic power of the colour terms in each language. Dr. Jaromira Rakusan Professor of Linguistics School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario, K1S5B6, CANADA |