Color categorization as a cultural schema

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The relevance and novelty of this study is determined by its purpose, which is to analyze color categorization as a cultural schema. Color categorization is understood as a way of dividing the color continuum into discrete areas (color categories), which society then endows with cultural connotations and includes in the general system of cultural knowledge. According the mentioned purpose, the concept of “cultural schema” was considered, the structure of color categorization as a cultural schema was designated and an analysis of its consistent inheritance and genesis in culture was presented. To reveal the main stages of the color categorization genesis and its typological characteristics, the ternary model of culture by A. V. Kostina and A. Ya. Flier was used. Based on the identified specificity of the interaction of three functional types of culture (consumer, traditional and creative), two types of color categorization are distinguished: natural and artificial. Natural color categorization is the historically first way of classifying color, which develops as nature is imitated (natural classes of colors) and dyes available to people are mastered. An important result of the accumulation and production of new knowledge in the field of color is the formation of a taxonomy of color terms in natural language, as well as the establishment of color categorization in everyday human consciousness in the form of cultural norms and customs, for example, the division of colors into “male” and “female” or into “festive” and “everyday” in religious clothing. As cultural practices associated with color develop, artificial color categorization arises against the background of natural color categorization. Its main distinguishing feature is a completely controlled process of obtaining color and codification of color relations in the form of atlases and color systems.