Summary Details
| Query: |
Summary: red and yellow
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| Author: | Hiroaki Tanaka | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Semantics
Cognitive Science |
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| Summary: |
Dear Linguists, A month and a half ago, I posted a query on this list concerning the images of the color "red" and "yellow". These words are the theme of my undergraduate students in her graduation paper. Her original questions are the following: When you hear the word $B!H(Jred", what do you imagine/associate? Please choose the appropriate words(the words you can think up of) among the following words? Please check * mark in the brackets. If you can think up of something other than the words listed below. pure completely%absolutely sensational the sun deficit communism danger stop happy good luck anger old and new drug fire 31 people responded to her query. The results are the following: pure (1 person) completely%absolutely (2 people) sensational (13) the sun (6) deficit (13) communism (26) danger (27) stop (25) happy (6) good luck (3) anger (23) old and new (0) drug (1) fire (23) Other words which have images of "red." native American people (4) Christmas (3) blood (8) embarrassment (6) $B"*(Jthis meaning comes from the color of the face, in which case people turn red when they are embarrassed. sunrise/sunset (3) words which represent acuteness,fight. passion (5) hot (6) war (2) intensity (1) argumentative (1) incitement (1) confrontational (1) belligerence (1) impetuosity (1) - ------------------------------------------ About "yellow", theoriginal query was the following: When you hear the word $B!H(Jyellow", what do you imagine/associate? Please choose the appropriate words(the words you can think up of) among the following words? Please check * mark in the brackets. If you can think up of something other than the words listed below. inexperienced attention a star the moon fire cowardice sensational boring the sun old age The result: inexperienced (1) attention (4) a star (8) the moon (3) fire (8) cowardice (19) sensational (3) boring (0) the sun (25) old age (4) Other words expressing the image of "yellow." happy (4) old and discolored (4) caution (5) East Asian (3) These are some responses in which some of the respondeants sent comments about "yellow": Many Americans also associate yellow with welcomehome of a friend or family member because of the song "Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree" but because I$B!-(Jm also aware that the yellow ribbon was formerly used by merried prostitutes who did so to indicate their husband wasn't home. I'm jaded on this custom. I guess I associate the color yellow with laundry detergent commercials which frequently display this color as a selling tool and reinforce its meaning with "clean" and also "feminine" because of the traditional idea that women clean, not men, which is also reinforced in these commercials. I'm interested you included "inexperienced" in your list. For me the color associated with inexperience is green. (Green also implies envy,money,freshness,environment-friendliness (Green Party), and a bunch of other things) The Results of questionnaires, people imagine/associate cawadise and the sun overwhelming, when they hear yellow. There are the image comes from yellow was used coincidence like comments sending out. - ----------------------------------------------- The final question was about the color of the sun and the moon. I$B!-(Jd like to ask you the color of the sun. What do you think is the color of sun and moon in English? The results of this questionnairy are: Color of the sun yellow 18 golden 2 yellow or gold 2 red-orange 2 orange-yellow 1 orange 1 The followings are some the comments: The sun is yellow (look at any US kindergarten class's pictures big circle or sometimes portion of a circle placed in a corner with a bluestripe for sky across the top of a "landscape" oriented rectangle) Typically, the sun is yellow, but red at sunrise and sunset. Yet when I hear "red" I don$B!-(Jt associate it with the sun, even the rising/setting sun. - -------------------------------------------- Interestingly, Japanese use "red" as the color of the sun, not "yellow" or "silver." - ---------------------------------------------- Color of the moon white 13 silver(y) 4 white or silver 3 pallid cream yellow white or pearly 1 grayish white gray white white or cream - ----------------------------------------- Thank you very much on behalf of my students. She is writing her paper very earnestly right now. Hiroaki Tanaka Associate Professor Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences Tokushima University, Japan 1-1, Minamijousanjioma, Tokushima, 770-8052, Japan phone & fax: +81 886 56 7125 e-mail: hiro-t@ias.tokushima-u.ac.jp |
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| LL Issue: | 9.95 | |
| Date Posted: | 21-Jan-1998 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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