Abstract
The present paper is only a small part of the investigation we have performed into the evolution of how the meaning of colour is represented in contemporary LSP texts. The English language is undergoing a process of change characterized by a tendency towards the extension of the meaning of lexical units. This tendency can be observed in the semantic field of colour, which is a significant component of the cognitive models that enable both an understanding and representation of reality. Having studied multiple sources and analyzed numerous examples illustrating the historical evolution of this phenomenon, we aim to demonstrate both the complex, multifaceted nature of colour terms and their possible application in the designation of concepts and the formation of new terms. Within the scope of this paper, we have investigated the mechanisms of how contemporary colour-based terms are formed with the additional aim of broadening the perception of colour term applications.
Highlights
The semantics of colour has always attracted the interest of philosophers, scholars and professionals from various fields as the emergence of new meanings is not an issue to be addressed solely by traditional linguistics
Many books and articles on the different aspects of the cognitive nature of colour, colour categorization and colour vocabulary development have been written, and the phenomenon of how the meaning of colour is represented through the use of colour terms is still a fascinating area for research
The study of colour terms (e.g. Berlin, Kay 1969; Rosch 1975; Witkowski, Brown 1977; Kay, McDaniel 1978; Wierzbicka 1990; Dedrick 1998; Steinvall 2002; Kay 2015) in disciplines such as anthropology, psycholinguistics, statistics and corpus methodology has had a great impact on the research and analysis of the changes in the patterns and usages of colour-term formation
Summary
The semantics of colour has always attracted the interest of philosophers, scholars and professionals from various fields as the emergence of new meanings is not an issue to be addressed solely by traditional linguistics. The present paper looks at terminological tendencies in the representation of meaning, and focuses on the manifestation of the diverse nature of colour terms (colour names) in the context of both prominent literary works and contemporary LSP texts in the English language, paying particular attention to the analysis of the processes of meaning formation, extension or compression. These processes have been analyzed within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory, adopting lexico-semantic, cognitive, pragmatic and semiotic approaches to exploring the representation of the meaning of colours. In addition to the subject under investigation, the authors provide an analysis of the mechanisms of contemporary colour-based term formation with the aim of broadening the perception of colour term applications
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