9.95, Sum: Red and Yellow
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LINGUIST List: Vol-9-95. Wed Jan 21 1998. ISSN: 1068-4875.
Subject: 9.95, Sum: Red and Yellow
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1)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 13:35:22 +0900
From: "Hiroaki Tanaka" <hiro-t at ias.tokushima-u.ac.jp>
Subject: Summary: red and yellow
-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 13:35:22 +0900
From: "Hiroaki Tanaka" <hiro-t at ias.tokushima-u.ac.jp>
Subject: Summary: red and yellow
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 at ias.tokushima-u.ac.jp
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