Singing the Russian Blues: An Argument for Culturally Basic Color Terms

Abstract

The universal inventory of basic color terms (BCTs) consists of 11 terms, including a single blue term. Russian has two terms for blue, sinij (dark blue) and goluboj (light blue). The proposed status of goluboj as the 12th basic term challenges theory stating the upper limit of BCTs. This article reviews a body of research on the Russian blues and draws on arguments from lexical-semantic analysis and linguistic and psycholinguistic studies. It is argued that goluboj, being symbolically charged, emerged in Russian as culturally basic. Counterparts of the Russian blues in other languages are considered. Within a context beyond Russian, the potential refinement of the blue area is suggested to follow perceptual-cognitive universals. This is reinforced by language and culturally specific semiotics. By drawing attention to a distinction between denotative and designative meaning, the issue of the Russian blues calls into question the proper definition of a basic color term.

Re-locating colors in the OSA space

“…Some researchers have argued that blends of these two different perspectives would be most appropriate for modeling color-naming phenomena (Dedrick, 1997;Jameson, 2005;Jameson & Alvarado, 2003;Paramei, 2005).…”

Categorical effects of color perception in central and peripheral fields of view

“…Более поздние исследования данного цветового диапазона в различных языках пока-зали, что и в других языках есть больше одного обозначения цвета для этой зоны (см. напри-мер: Paramei, 2005), однако количество таких языков очень незначительно. По мнению Г.В.…”

“…По мнению Г.В. Парамей (Paramei, 2005), голубой следует считать культурно-специфическим для русского языка, поскольку развитию у этого цветового обозначения статуса основного способствова-ла определенная культурная среда. Мы не можем с уверенностью утверждать, что лежит в основе возникновения более длительной моторной реакции при восприятии сине-голубых цветов в нашем исследовании.…”

Espaço de cores

“…Apesar da grande maturidade na elaboração deste espaço, Newton incorporou uma analogia com a escala musical e não se preocupou com uma maior elaboração sistemática das cores. Em seu espaço não puderam ser representadas as gamas de púrpuras que são compostas pela mistura das cores das duas pontas da refração do prisma, mas Newton deixou por escrito uma referência a essa limitação (Mollon, 2003;Paramei, 2004 (Mollon, 2003).…”