This research discusses how embodiment of COLOR in English is used linguistically to identify figure-ground relations. It is constantly used visually used to process space and depth, but how is that experience expressed in language. Talmy refers to this process of perception and cognition as ception. The embodied motivation of color metaphor involves both signal and symbol processing. We elaborate color information from our experience of color as light and substance, and from the dimensions of hue, luminance, and saturation. We thereby establish figure/ground alignment, or, as defined by Croft & Cruse, spatial relations through location and motion, e.g., It came out of the blue, and scope of attention, e.g., She turned bright red. Color and color change establish fictive motion and locational profiles in any given frame. In a novel use of the Implicit Association Test participants assigned two target color dimension concepts LIGHT/DARK with a categorial attribute NEAR/FAR. COLOR allows for opposite connotations and spatial relations depending on the association activated; this study analyzes evidence of a highly conventionalized interpretation. Consequently, we propose COLOR as a fictive locational device that establishes the figure in relation to the ground in our ception of color and color change in space, e.g., The earth reddened toward the horizon.

The Figure/Ground Conceptual and Concrete Spatial Relation of Color Metaphor

SANDFORD, Jodi Louise
2011

Abstract

This research discusses how embodiment of COLOR in English is used linguistically to identify figure-ground relations. It is constantly used visually used to process space and depth, but how is that experience expressed in language. Talmy refers to this process of perception and cognition as ception. The embodied motivation of color metaphor involves both signal and symbol processing. We elaborate color information from our experience of color as light and substance, and from the dimensions of hue, luminance, and saturation. We thereby establish figure/ground alignment, or, as defined by Croft & Cruse, spatial relations through location and motion, e.g., It came out of the blue, and scope of attention, e.g., She turned bright red. Color and color change establish fictive motion and locational profiles in any given frame. In a novel use of the Implicit Association Test participants assigned two target color dimension concepts LIGHT/DARK with a categorial attribute NEAR/FAR. COLOR allows for opposite connotations and spatial relations depending on the association activated; this study analyzes evidence of a highly conventionalized interpretation. Consequently, we propose COLOR as a fictive locational device that establishes the figure in relation to the ground in our ception of color and color change in space, e.g., The earth reddened toward the horizon.
2011
9783631613122
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11391/127861
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