Colour and Language

Colour terms are, together with other semantic groups such as terms for measures and weights or kinship terms, semantic group with special linguistic properties. but contrary to those their nature is difficult to explain and they are characterized by the fact that they can assume a multitude of functions in communication. The present investigation attempts to show how the phenomenon of colour manifests itself in the English language or, the other way round, how the language copes with the phenomenon of colour. Astudy of language and colour cannot be restricted to purely linguistic areas such as morphology or syntax. It has to include questions of anthropology, colour physics, philosophy and semiotics. Moreover questions of the acquisition of colour terms, their classification, their standardization, their representation in various fields, technical and artistic, as well as their function in documentary and literary texts form part of this monograph on colour terms in Englisch.