Transcript Issues on Perception and Categorization of Color

Rethinking “color”
Presenter: Sayaka Abe
March 26, 2007
1
Overview
I. Review
Previous studies
II. Problems
III. Suggestions
The Semantics of Color: A New Paradigm
(Wierzbicka 2006)
2
I. Review

- categorization
- prototype theory
3
Point 1. Carving up the real world.
Different languages have different ways of
(or # of words for ) distinguishing the
objects or thoughts.
e.g. 1 word for vs 12 words for ‘snow’
4
‘coffee cup’
5
How about colors?
Yes.
6
Point 2: Prototypicality
Speakers of different languages have
different prototypical examples of a
category. (e.g. ‘robin’ to North Americans)
7
Naming task: What is typical ‘food’?
Japanese
Americans
best example
best example
8
How about colors?
“No”
What’s prototypical ‘red’ is similar across
languages. (Berlin & Kay)
Best examples of red
Not best examples of red
9
Implication from B & K and the
followers
Universal constraints
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis valid?
 not with color perception
“…in the case of color at
least… it is perception that
determines language.” (Kay &
McDaniel 1978)
10
II. Problems

The settings in the B & K’s study is artificial.

“basic color terms”
11
Questions raised
What do these things, ‘colors’ mean to the
speakers?
 Do they necessarily have these notions?
‘red’, ‘yellow’, ‘black’?
 Or “basic color terms”?
 For that matter, “color”?

12
Shouldn’t the concept of color (if any)
develop from real things?
“It is only in comparatively recent times, and only in
technologically advanced societies, that it has been
possible for a vast range of diverse colours to be
applied, through industrial processing, to things….”
(Taylor 1989; see also Hargraves 1982)
13
When thinking about universals, one must
get rid of anglo-centric bias!
(Kay 2004 considers the English word red
to be basic and use it to describe
Hungarian piros and vörös, etc.)
i.e. Do not assume the existence of
things/concepts just because we have
them.
14
There are communities

with no such invention or concepts of color chips
or even paints, inks, etc.

in which “color” is understood only in terms of
light, visibility, etc.
15
-
We need a way to describe “colors”
without using the term color

but how?
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III. Suggestions: How do we describe
“color”?
Wierzbicka, Anna 2006
(The semantics of color: a new paradigm)
“one can only explain things to people in
terms of something that they already
understand.” (p.8)
not by means of neurophysiology or
physics!
17
Consider: rustling noise (English)

Think like “this is like what people hear
when they hear leaves moving in the wind
and touching one another”.
The aural experience of rustling is not purely
aural, because it includes some knowledge
of the situation – knowledge we can be
put into words and which does not rely on
hearing.
18
Semantic Primitives
= a set of ‘semantic atoms’ lexicalized in all languages of the
world
SEE, HEAR, THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, PEOPLE, etc. (see
Table 1 on p. 5)
By combining primitives, we can describe more complex
concepts (‘semantic molecules’)
But not ‘tree’ or ‘bird’  not universal (there is no words for
these concepts in many Australian languages)
“There is no reason to assume that these concepts, which are
important in English, play a role in the conceptual system
of the languages which have no word for them.” (p.6)
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red (English)

a.
b.
c.
d.
X is red Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM)
people can think about X’s colour [M] like
this:
“it is like the colour[M] of blood[M]”
at the same time, they can think about it
like this:
“sometimes people can see something
like this when they see fire[M]”
‘atoms’ (or primitives)
‘molecules’
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So,
“Color” (‘molecule’ in English) can be expressed using natural
language, in particular, using the terms of SEEING (which is
a primitive or ‘atom’)
- ‘X looks like Y’ mechanism

While many languages do not have a word for ‘colour’, all
languages have a word for ‘seeing’.

“It makes sense to ask how people in different cultures talk
and think about what they see – rather than ask about how
they talk and think about colours.”
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The ‘red’ example shows that
There are conceptual links between ‘red’ and ‘blood’ as well
as ‘red and ‘fire’.
 though these two types of links are somewhat different.



‘red’ and ‘blood’
Assumption: “colour of things called red is like the colour of
blood.”
‘red’ and ‘fire’
Assumption: it is not that “the fire is inherently red”.
red coals, red-hot and fiery red “looking like fire, blazing
red”
The conceptual link shows that red is considered as ‘warm’
colors, and also sometimes as ‘danger’.
22
Case study: Burarra “color” terms
“black” and “white”
Jones and Meehan (1978)
-gungaltja “light, brilliant and white colors”
“highly saturated red”
requires “a touch of brilliance and
animation as well as high degree of
brightness”
-gungundja ‘all other colors: dark, dull and
black colours’
23

Despite their use of the words ‘color’,
Jones and Meehan’s own observations
show that the distinction is not based on
color at all.
Rather, ‘lightness’ vs. ‘darkness’
and also the presence or absence of
‘bright redness’
*Burarra people have no concept of ‘white’
and ‘a warm color’; and it has no concept
of ‘’black’, ‘gray’ and ‘cool color’
24
-gungaltja
X is -gungaltja =
a.
some things are like this:
b.
when people see a place where these things
are, they can always see these things
c.
the sun[M] is always like this
d.
fire[M] is always like this
e.
at some times, blood is always like this
f.
X is like this
- ‘high visibility’
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-gungundja
a.
b.
c.
d.
some things are like this:
when people see a place where these
things are they can always see these
things
many other things are not like this
X is like these other things
- absence of conspicuous visibility
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Some thoughts

Wierzbicka’s criticisms about the basic color
terms and the non-universality of the concept
‘color’ is convincing.

Nevertheless, B+K’s finding about prototypicality
is still interesting.
(Something like: looks ‘pure’ instead of ‘best
example of red’?)
Wierzbicka’s observation is concerned with
knowledge, memory, experience, etc. as opposed
to here and now.
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