{"id":904,"date":"2010-10-03T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2010-10-03T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=904"},"modified":"2010-07-21T10:22:45","modified_gmt":"2010-07-21T08:22:45","slug":"progress-in-colour-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=904","title":{"rendered":"Progress in colour studies"},"content":{"rendered":"
Progress in colour studies.<\/strong> Vol. 1: Language and culture. Ed. by Carole P. Biggam<\/strong> and Christian J. Kay<\/strong>. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2006. Pp. xii, 223. ISBN 9789027293039. $143 (Hb). Vol. 2: Psychological aspects. Ed. by Nicola J. Pitchford<\/strong> and Carole P. Biggam. Pp. xiv, 237. ISBN 9789027232403<\/a>. $143 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Heiko Narrog<\/a><\/strong>, Tohoku University, Japan<\/em><\/p>\n

Studies on color terms have long been a battlefield for scholars of different persuasions. The universalist approach of Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, whose seminal book, Basic color terms: Their universality and evolution<\/em> (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), initiated this field of study, has been the target of often ferocious criticism from anthropological and discourse-oriented scholars. This set of two volumes, based on papers presented at Progress in Colour Studies 2004, held at the University of Glasgow, promises a new round of controversy.<\/p>\n

Volume 1 is devoted to \u2018Language and culture\u2019. Section 1 focuses on \u2018Theoretical and methodological approaches\u2019 to the study of color terms. Anna Wierzbicka<\/strong> (1\u201324) sets the tone by denying the universality of the concept of color. Instead, Wierzbicka <\/strong>posits a set of basic and universal semantic atoms that can describe color terms and related concepts in any language. Terri MacKeigan<\/strong> and Stephen Q. Muth<\/strong> (25\u201336) present a subset of the results from their study of Tzotzil-Mayan color terms. Here, they focus on the spread of new color terms in social networks. Adam Paw\u0142owski<\/strong> (37\u201352) explores variation in the frequency of use of color terms in ten European languages. Anders Steinvall<\/strong> (58\u201371) investigates the use of color terms for type modification (e.g. white wine<\/em>), which is thought to be instrumental in the spread of new color terms within a language. Adam Glaz<\/strong> (74\u201387) discusses Robert E. MacLaury\u2019s vantage theory (Color and cognition in Mesoamerica: Constructing categories as vantages<\/em>, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997). Barbara Saunders<\/strong> (89\u201399) pleads for a socio-historical view of color.<\/p>\n

Four papers explore color terms in \u2018Modern languages\u2019. Isabel Forbes<\/strong> (101\u201309) analyzes age-related variation of the two French color terms for \u2018brown\u2019\u2014namely, brun<\/em> and marron<\/em>. Margarita Correia<\/strong> (111\u201325) provides an introduction to the semantic field of color in European Portuguese. Andrew Hippisley<\/strong> and Ian R. L. Davies<\/strong> (127\u201343) describe color terms in Lower and Upper Sorbian, two endangered Slavic languages spoken in Germany. They demonstrate that the system of color terms in these languages is still evolving. Heidi Ann Lazar-Meyn<\/strong> (145\u201357) describes color terms in the oral literature and music of Scots Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n

The final three papers in this volume offer \u2018Historical approaches\u2019 to the study of color terms. Carole P. Biggam (159\u201379) examines the demise of Old English h\u0153wen<\/em> and its replacement by Norman French bleu<\/em> \u2018blue\u2019. Carole Hough<\/strong> (181\u201398) reports on place names that contain Old English color adjectives, and Michael J. Huxtable<\/strong> (199\u2013217) conceptualizes color in the English medieval world, arguing that \u2018in the past colour was seen differently\u2019 (199).<\/p>\n

Volume 2 is devoted to the \u2018Psychological aspects\u2019 of color terms. \u2018Theoretical approaches\u2019 are discussed in three papers. Taking a meta-theoretical perspective, Don Dedrick<\/strong> (1\u201312) stresses that color term researchers must clarify the scope, the goals, and the underlying assumptions of their studies. Kimberley A. Jameson<\/strong>, David Bimler<\/strong>, and Linda M. Wasserman<\/strong> (13\u201333) reassess perceptual diagnostics for observers with diverse retinal photopigment genotypes. Marc H. Bornstein<\/strong> (35\u201368) overviews research on the relationship between hue categorization and color naming.<\/p>\n

\u2018Developmental and cultural aspects\u2019 of color terms are the focus of Section 2. Davida Y. Teller<\/strong>, Maria Pereverzeva<\/strong>, and Iris Zemach<\/strong> (69\u201390) present preferential looking techniques used to study infant color perception. Di Catherwood<\/strong> (91\u2013100) discusses the rivalry between color and spatial attributes in infant response to the visual field. Anna Franklin<\/strong> and Ian R. L. Davies (101\u201319) demonstrate that perceptual color categorization occurs even before infants learn color terms. They suggest that color categorization might be linguistically modified rather than linguistically constructed. Valerie Bonnardel<\/strong> and Nicola Pitchford (121\u201338) investigate color perception in preschool children. They demonstrate that language has little influence on the categorization of color perception, except in the case of brown,<\/em> which is conceptualized later than the other basic colors. Nicola Pitchford and Kathy T. Mullen<\/strong> (139\u201358) find no temporal advantage in the first language acquisition of primary color terms compared to nonprimary color terms. Debi Roberson<\/strong>, Jules Davidoff<\/strong>, Ian R. L. Davies, and Laura R. Shapiro<\/strong> (159\u201372) investigate color category acquisition in Himba (a Bantu language) and English. They conclude that \u2018children gradually acquire the organization of [color] categories, and progress gradually from an uncategorized organization of colour based on perceptual similarity [\u2026] to a structured organization of categories that varies across languages and cultures\u2019 (168). Yazhu Ling<\/strong>, Anya Hurlbert<\/strong>, and Lucy Robinson<\/strong> (173\u201388) explore sex differences in color perception. In particular, they identify a preference for red by females in both the United Kingdom and China.<\/p>\n

The final two papers focus on \u2018Cognitive and emotional aspects\u2019 of color terms. Lilia Roselia Prado-Le\u00f3n<\/strong>, Rosal\u00edo Avila-Chaurand<\/strong>, and Rosa Amelia Rosales-Cinco<\/strong> (189\u2013202) investigate color associations in the Mexican university population. They find that some colors are solidly associated with specific stereotypes, while others are not. Christian J. Kay and Catherine Mulvenna<\/strong> (203\u201329) overview synaesthesia from a linguistic and psychological perspective.<\/p>\n

These papers represent the diversity of the current research on color terminology. As Marc H. Bornstein succinctly states: \u2018an apparent paradox plagues the color literature: color categorization without the involvement of linguistics [\u2026] supports universalism, whereas color categorization in which linguistics plays a role (color naming) points to relativism\u2019 (Vol. 2, 57).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Progress in colour studies. Vol. 1: Language and culture. Ed. by Carole P. Biggam and Christian J. Kay. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2006. Pp. xii, 223. ISBN 9789027293039. $143 (Hb). Vol. 2: Psychological aspects. Ed. by Nicola J. Pitchford and Carole P. Biggam. Pp. xiv, 237. ISBN 9789027232403. $143 (Hb). Reviewed by Heiko Narrog, Tohoku University, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":905,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}