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Conceptualization of Colours
in Sign Languages

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Hello.

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My topic is conceptualization of colours
in sign languages.

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I'd like to focus on designations
of colours in sign languages.

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Specifically in CzSL.

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What are the sign forms
for colours in sign languages?

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In the morning, Ms Va?ková
explained the meaning of prototypes.

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Now, we'll discuss the prototypes
of colours in different sign languages.

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Do the prototypes in spoken languages
differ from those in sign languages?

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That's what I'm going
to discuss in my talk.

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First, I'll make a few general points
about research on colours.

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The 2 most famous linguists who
looked into designations of colours

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were B. Berlin and P. Kay,
their names are on the slide.

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I'm sure a lot of you
know these linguists.

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They wrote the book Basic Color Terms,
as you can see on the slide.

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Berlin and Kay focused their research
on designations of colours

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in different world languages.

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They focused on spoken languages
and studied the designations of colours.

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They looked into designations
of basic colours in these languages.

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They found 11 basic
designations of colours.

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Interestingly, not all these languages
contain all the 11 colours.

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There are also languages with fewer
basic designations of colours.

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They may have e.g. only 2, 5, 7,
it differs from case to case.

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Berlin and Kay also established
an important classification

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that defined the necessary properties
of basic colours.

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Look at the slide: there is a spectrum
 with 11 different colours.

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As you can see, the 11 colours
are divided into 7 different groups.

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The first group consists of
only 2 designations of colours.

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Specifically, white and black.

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The languages in this group only contain
these 2 basic colours.

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The second group consists of languages
with designations for black and white,

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plus they also contain red colour.

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The third group comprises all
previous colours plus green and yellow.

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This tendency continues
till the seventh group.

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If a language falls into
the seventh group,

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it means it has designations
for all basic colours.

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I think it is very important to mention
the conditions set by Berlin and Kay.

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Conditions for classifying colours
in spoken languages.

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The first condition is as follows:

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In spoken languages, the designation for
a basic colour consists of a single word

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and does not rank among compound words.
I'll give you an example.

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For example "blue".

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In Czech, it is a single word
so the first condition is met.

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But if we consider "light blue"
as a designation,

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it is not a basic colour,
the first condition is not met.

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It is not a single word.

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The same applies to compounds
like "blue-green".

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These designations do not meet
the first condition.

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The 2nd condition says: the designation
for a basic colour is a hypernym.

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Let's use "red" as an example.

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The designation for red colour
meets this condition.

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But for example "crimson" is not a
basic colour, it is subordinate to red.

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The 3rd condition
set by Berlin and Kay says:

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The designation for a basic colour
has high collocability with nouns.

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For example "yellow": you can
collocate the colour with many nouns.

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E.g. yellow shoes, a yellow car,
a yellow book and many more nouns.

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That is why we consider yellow
as a basic colour.

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Let's consider
a different designation, e.g. "blond".

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I'll repeat it: the colour "blond".

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It is very similar to yellow,
but it collocates only with "hair".

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"Blond hair".

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In Czech, you cannot say "a blond book"
or "a blond shirt", it does not exist.

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The 4th condition is: the colour
has to be psychologically distinct.

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It means everybody
has known it since childhood.

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Children recognize it since early age,
they can see it on a regular basis.

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In the wild, at home, everywhere,
it is a well-known colour to them.

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The fifth condition
is of great importance.

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It says: the designation for a
basic colour is an non-motivated word.

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I'll give you an example: e.g. "brown".

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It meets the condition because we cannot
say what the motivation for the word is.

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It is not clear at first sight.

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But let's consider
a different example: "chestnut" colour.

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It does not meet the condition because
it is clearly motivated by a chestnut.

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The last condition is as follows:

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The designation for a basic colour
is not borrowed from another language.

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I'll give you an example from Czech:
"orange" colour, look at it here.

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In Czech, it is oran?ová ("orange").

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You can see it is derived
from the English word "orange".

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That is why "orange" in Czech
cannot be considered a basic colour.

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Now, we'll discuss
the cognitive linguistics aspect.

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We'll look at perception of colours
from a different perspective.

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First, I would like to mention
the researchers applying this method.

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It is mainly Ms Va?ková,
who gave her talk in the morning.

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The others are
A. Wierzbicka and R. Tokarski.

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In spoken languages, research on colours
has been conducted for many years.

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It has been trying to find a prototype
of colour in language awareness.

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Researchers have been looking into our
mental associations related to colours.

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They examined phraseology and
looked for colours in verbal arts,

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set phrases and other materials.

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The colours they discovered
were labelled as prototypes.

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We discussed this topic a bit
in the morning.

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So you know what a prototype means:
it is the best example from a category,

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the first thought
that comes to our minds.

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In the morning, we used an example of
"fruit", we first think of an "apple".

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So the prototype of fruit is an apple.

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In sign languages,
there are also designations for colours.

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Universal nature of colours in spoken
and sign languages is not clear.

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I prepared this slide for you
but I will not go into details.

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I only wanted to show you
the designation for red colour in Czech.

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You can see where it is possible
to find this designation.

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E.g. in dictionaries, you can look up
etymology of the colour.

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You can look up phraseology
associated with this colour.

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But more importantly, we conclude
that the prototypes of red in Czech

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are blood and fire.

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Designations for colours have also been
looked into in sign languages.

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One of the most important linguists
in this field was James Woodward.

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He examined 10 different sign languages.

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He tried to distinguish
the designations for basic colours.

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Berlin and Kay had set certain rules
but according to Woodward,

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it was impossible to meet them.

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I have told you that Berlin and Kay
said, for example,

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that the designation for a basic colour
must be non-motivated.

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The problem is that sign languages
are generally very visual.

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So many designations for colours
in sign languages are visually motivated

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and, therefore, the condition
set by Berlin and Kay is not met.

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Also, these designations may not
be borrowed from another language.

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As mentioned before,
sign languages use initialization a lot.

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So in order to designate a colour,
you use the first letter of the word.

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For example the colour "yellow"
will be signed as "y".

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You will use
the first letter of the word.

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As I have said, the linguist Woodward
examined 10 different sign languages.

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The disadvantage of sign languages is
insufficient amount of source material.

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Researching spoken languages is easier
because they have a written form.

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You can search in
phraseology, old books etc.

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Sign languages
do not have these possibilites.

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Therefore, in sign languages research,
you need to look for different ways

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of examining designations
for basic colours.

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Prototypes of colours also
need to be searched in a different way.

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I also conducted research, some of you
already know what I'm talking about.

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Because those of you who registered
for my workshop got a task:

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to send me videos
with signs for three basic colours.

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I was interested in the form of the sign
in your sign language.

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I also looked into derived signs

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and signs whose form was
connected to the designation of colour.

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I also asked you what you thought
the motivation for the designation was

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in your sign language.

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Now, I'll show you 3 different
designations for 3 colours in CzSL.

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Specifically "white", "red"
and "black" colours.

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I will start with the "black" colour.

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This is the sign for "black"
in the Czech Sign Language.

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There are several derived signs
related to this sign. E.g. "darkness".

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This is the sign for "darkness".

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And then the sign for the "night".

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This is the "night" in CzSL.

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You can see that
the "black" colour, signed in this form,

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can be related to black people,
dark-skinned people.

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This is the sign for "Africa",
it is also related to black people,

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the place where black people live.

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When I asked the Deaf what they thought
the motivation for the sign was,

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they all told me "black" was certainly
motivated by "darkness" or "night".

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You can, therefore, clearly see
the prototypes of the "black" sign.

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These are "darkness" and "night".

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Interestingly, in CzSL
there are also 2 indirect designations,

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idioms related to the black colour.

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The first one is "black day", meaning
a bad day when everything went wrong.

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The second one is "black heart",
which has two meanings.

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First, it means a person
is disappointed in love.

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For example a couple after a break-up.

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One of them decides
not to look for anybody else,

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because s/he is very sad
and doesn't trust anybody anymore.

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Second, it means a bad person.

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Another colour I looked into
in my research was "white".

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In CzSL there are three
different signs for the "white" colour:

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"White", "white" or "white".

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There are 2 groups of signs
related to the first sign.

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The first group comprises
e.g. this sign for "snow blanket".

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Or this sign for "egg white".

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Then a "white person",

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"to turn pale",

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and "Europe".

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You can see that all these signs
contain the sign for the "white" colour.

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The second group
is marked b) on the slide.

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It consists of signs which do not
contain the sign for "white" itself

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but the place of articulation
or the movement of the sign

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are very similar to those of
the basic sign for "white" in CzSL.

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E.g. the sign for "flour",

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and the sign for "silver".

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You can see there are a lot of
signs related to the "white" colour.

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The question is what the motivation
for the sign "white" is.

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Most Deaf think that
the prototype of "white" is "flour"

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because people used to
dust it off their clothes.

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That's the first opinion.
The second possibility is a "shirt".

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Because people used to wear white shirts
a lot and the sign is very similar.

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Therefore, we can't say there is a clear
prototype of the "white" colour in CzSL.

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The last colour I examined
was the "red" colour.

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CzSL has two different signs for "red",
either the Bohemian one: "red".

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Or the Moravian sign
for "red": this one.

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These are the related signs
in the category a):

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This sign for "June"
or this sign for "June".

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I'll show it one more time:
"June" or "June".

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Also the sign for "July"
in 2 variants: "July" or "July".

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There is also the sign for
"turn red", "blush".

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The "rusty" colour might also
be linked to "red".

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Sometimes, this sign
for "rusty" is used.

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But the question is whether
the connection is clearly there or not.

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Not all Deaf use
the sign similar to "red".

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The next group comprises signs that
don't contain the sign for "red" itself.

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But the place of articulation is
similar to the one for the "red" sign.

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The group consists of
these signs: "pink",

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"orange" colour,

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and, interestingly, it could also
contain the hypernym "colour"

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because it is formed by
"red" and "colour".

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This sign could also
belong to the group.

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Therefore, "red" might be
the prototype of all colours in CzSL.

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I think the motivation for "red"
in CzSL is absolutely clear, it's lips.

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To conclude, I prepared
this table for you.

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You can see all 11 designations
for basic colours in it.

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You can look at it.

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There are e.g. the number of variants,
motivation and related signs.

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There are also the prototype
of the specific colours.

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It's in the last column.

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We'll continue with this topic
at my workshop.

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Now, I would like to finish my talk.

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I'm looking forward
to the next part: our workshop.

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Thank you for your attention.