Color-images of political realities (On the BASIS of Sri Lanka)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to identify and describe the meaning of names of colors (coloronyms) associated with politics among Sri Lankans. This article is based on a free associative experiment; it analyzes and interprets the reactions of the respondents.. For the analysis, we selected 500 questionnaires (belonging to 250 men and 250 women). As stimuli, the coloronyms “red”, “black”, “green”, “white” were chosen. When analyzing the obtained associative fields, it turned out that the green and red colors only have a political meaning, and there were no such political meanings for the black and white colors. The percentage of responses to the stimulus green associated with politics is 16% (of which 24.8% in men's questionnaires and 7.2% in women's questionnaires) and the percentage of reaction to the red stimulus associated with politics is 12.8% (of which in men's questionnaires - 24.8% and in women's profiles - 7.2%). In male questionnaires, there are 2-3 times more reactions related to politics than in women's questionnaires. In general, men mentioned politics in their responses 7-8 times more than women. Thus, we see that some colors when used in politics, are necessarily linked to the myths and carry some extra meaning.