Naming the Rainbow: Colour Language, Colour Science, and CultureIs there a universal biolinguistic disposition for the development of `basic' colour words? This question has been a subject of debate since Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution was published in 1969. Naming the Rainbow is the first extended study of this debate. The author describes and criticizes empirically and conceptually unified models of colour naming that relate basic colour terms directly to perceptual and ultimately to physiological facts, arguing that this strategy has overlooked the cognitive dimension of colour naming. He proposes a psychosemantics for basic colour terms which is sensitive to cultural difference and to the nature and structure of non-linguistic experience. Audience: Contemporary colour naming research is radically interdisciplinary and Naming the Rainbow will be of interest to philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, and cognitive scientists concerned with: biological constraints on cognition and categorization; problems inherent in cross-cultural and in interdisciplinary science; the nature and extent of cultural relativism. |
Contents
COLOUR NAMING AND WHORFS HYPOTHESIS | 10 |
THE STRUCTURE OF THE COLOUR SPACE | 13 |
FOCAL COLOURS | 15 |
FOCALITY AND FOCAL EFFECTS | 20 |
CONCLUSION TO THIS CHAPTER | 23 |
PSYCHOPHYSICS AND COLOUR NAMING | 25 |
HUMAN COLOUR VISION THE OPPONENT COLOURS THEORY | 29 |
PSYCHOPHYSICS AND FOCALITY | 37 |
COMPOSITE CATEGORIES LINGUISTIC AND VISUAL RELATIONS | 96 |
INTERPRETING THE COMPOSITE CATEGORY RULE | 98 |
IS THERE A PERCEPTUALBIOLOGICAL BASIS FOR COMPOSITE CATEGORIES? | 101 |
CONCLUSION TO THIS CHAPTER | 105 |
THE NONNATURALNESS OF COLOUR CATEGORIES | 108 |
SIMILARITY COLOUR SPACE AND COLOURS THE EMPIRICIST TRADITION IN PHILOSOPHY | 109 |
NATURAL AND CONSTRUCTED NAMEABLES | 112 |
CONCEPTUALIZING COLOURS | 116 |
PSYCHOPHYSICS AND BASIC COLOUR CATEGORIES | 41 |
CONCLUSION TO THIS CHAPTER | 47 |
COLOUR NAMING AND THE BRAIN | 48 |
LGN NEURONS PSYCHOPHYSICS AND COLOUR NAMING AN INTERLUDE | 52 |
THE PRIMARY VISUAL CORTEX AND BEYOND | 56 |
CONCLUSION TO THIS CHAPTER | 57 |
LANGUAGE MIND AND BRAIN A SUMMARY | 59 |
REGULARITIES AND GENERALIZATIONS | 62 |
CONCLUSION TO THIS CHAPTER | 72 |
COMPOSITE COLOUR CATEGORIES AND THE EVOLUTION OF SYSTEMS OF COLOUR NAMING | 77 |
BERLIN AND KAYS EVOLUTIONARY ORDER 1969 | 82 |
REFORMULATING THE ORDERING THE 1975 HUE SEQUENCE | 83 |
THE 1978 EXPLANATION FNRs | 86 |
BASIC COLOUR TERMS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION A REVISED TAXONOMY | 91 |
THE PROBLEM OF LINGUISTIC COMPOSITE CATEGORIES | 94 |
THE NATURAL AND THE COGNITIVE | 122 |
THE LOGIC AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLOUR NAMING | 123 |
CONCLUSION TO THIS CHAPTER | 130 |
CULTURE AND COLOUR NAMING | 133 |
THE NATURE OF CULTURAL INQUIRY | 134 |
BOASIAN THEMES | 136 |
COGNITION AND COLOUR | 144 |
CONCLUSION TO THIS CHAPTER | 148 |
COLOUR NAMING COGNITION AND CULTURE | 153 |
CRITICISM OF BERLIN AND KAY AND ROSCH | 160 |
NOTES | 179 |
REFERENCES | 201 |
| 213 | |
Other editions - View all
Naming the Rainbow: Colour Language, Colour Science, and Culture D. Dedrick No preview available - 2013 |
Naming the Rainbow: Colour Language, Colour Science, and Culture D. Dedrick No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
anthropologists argued Basic Color Terms basic colour categories basic terms Berlin and Kay Berlin-Kay biological blue Bornstein boundaries Brakel Brent Berlin Brown and Lenneberg chapter chips chromatic chromatic response claim codability cognitive colour classification colour language colour naming colour presentations colour samples colour space colour terms colour vision colour vocabularies colour words composite categories concepts cones constraints constructed correlated cross-cultural cultural Dani described determined discrimination discussed epigenetic epigenetic rules evolutionary experience focal colours foci ganglion cells green Hardin Harrison ISBN Kay and McDaniel Kay's light linguistic Logic MacLaury Maffi Merrifield model of colour name bases nameables natural neural neurophysiology non-linguistic notion number of basic opponent colours opponent processes Paul Kay perceptual philosopher physiology problem prototypes psychological psychophysical receptors reference relation Rosch salience saturation sense social speakers specified spectral Stage stimuli structure subjects theory Thompson 1995a unique hues universalist tradition visual wavelength yellow
Popular passages
Page 4 - I conclude that there is no such thing as a "natural" division of the spectrum. The color systems of man are not based upon psychological, physiological, or anatomical factors. Each culture has taken the spectral continuum and has divided it upon a basis which is quite arbitrary except for pragmatic considerations.