Influence of vocational education on color vocabulary and color naming patterns

Abstract

Introduction. The professional education received and the professional activity carried out have a tangible impact on many spheres of human life. A professional environment influences a person’s consciousness, changes his/her conceptual thinking and lexical content of everyday communication. The purpose of the research is to test whether growing color competence affects the size, variability, and quality of the color vocabulary of native Russian speakers. Materials and methods. The data were collected in an online experiment involving 1737 native Russian speakers with different professional backgrounds and levels of color competence: 1103 participants were not professionally involved with color (hereafter referred to as non-professionals); 509 were students, in the process of professionally mastering the theoretical foundations of color science and colorism, and had basic color competence (hereafter referred to as novice professionals); 125 participants were practicing colorists and color consultants, designers and architects (hereafter referred to as experienced professionals). Results. The research showed that the growth of professional experience and coloristic competence noticeably affects the color vocabulary and color naming patterns. Compared to non-professionals, novice and experienced professionals use more complex color naming patterns and a greater variety of chromatic and achromatic modifiers (the Shannon diversity index increases from 6.55 to 7.52 and 7.12 respectively), but fewer basic color names (they account for 47% of non-professional, 43% of novice and 38% of experienced professionals’ vocabulary). The influence of professional education and professional culture is most pronounced in the choice of referent objects for describing connotations. 132 of the 320 referent objects proposed by non-professionals, and 113 of the 301 objects proposed by professionals, were “endemic” to each of these groups and were not used by representatives of other groups. Non-professionals most often described hues using naturally occurring substances, plants, flowers, artifacts, and body products as prototypes. Color specialists chose as referents dyes, pigments, paint brands, and exotic terms that fill modern advertising. Conclusions. The results confirm the hypothesis that, in addition to the universal perceptual factors that control color categorization, color-related cognitive processes are also influenced by social and cultural factors. The revealed professional differences of color vocabulary and color naming patterns can be used in the practical implementation of the process of formation of linguodidactic design of professional personality of a wide range of professionals, whose activities are directly or indirectly related to the choice of color and color design.