Cognitive Effects of Color Adjective Metaphors Evoked by the Interaction between Color Adjectives and Head Nouns

• Sakamoto Maki

  Department of Human Communications, The University of Electro-Communications

• Utsumi Akira

  Department of Systems Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications

Bibliographic Information

Other Title

• 色彩形容詞と名詞の相互作用による色彩形容詞メタファーの認知効果
• シキサイ ケイヨウシ ト メイシ ノ ソウゴ サヨウ ニ ヨル シキサイ ケイヨウシ メタファー ノ ニンチ コウカ

Abstract

Most of the existing metaphor studies address comprehension of nominal metaphors, like “My job is a jail”, and predicative metaphors, like “He shot down all of my arguments”. However, little attention has been given to how people comprehend adjective metaphors, such as “sweet voice”. Very few studies have focused on color adjective metaphors, like “red voice” or “black mood”, in which an adjective denoting color modifies a noun designating abstract entities like emotions. However, not a few color adjective metaphors are used in our daily life as well as in literary works. Germen poetic expressions like “blaue Klage” (blue cry) or “weiße Traurigkeit” (white sadness) indicate cognitive universality. In this paper, we examine meanings of Japanese color adjective metaphors and argue that meanings of those metaphors are not predictable from those typically associated with color adjectives, and that those metaphors evoke negative images. Based on the Abstract Performance Grammar proposed by Osgood (1980), we hypothesized meaning change patterns by the interaction between source concepts expressed by color adjectives and modified target concepts expressed by head nouns. These hypotheses were tested by psychological experiments. Materials used in the experiment were collected from the Internet. Subjects were asked to evaluate meanings of linguistic expressions by 7-point semantic differential scales (from strongly negative as -3 to strongly positive as +3). Subjects were also asked to give words associated from each expression. Results suggest color adjective metaphors tend to evoke negative images.

Journal

• Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society

  Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society 14 (3), 380-397, 2007

  Japanese Cognitive Science Society

Keywords

• color adjective metaphor
• Japanese
• semantic interaction
• negative image

Details

• CRID: 1390282679461242112
• NII Article ID: 10019839604
• NII Article ID: 130004490836
• NII Book ID: AN1047304X
• DOI: 10.11225/jcss.14.380
• ISSN: 18815995
• ISSN: 13417924
• NDL BIB ID: 8948860
• Web Site: http://id.ndl.go.jp/bib/8948860
• Web Site: https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R000000004-I8948860
• Text Lang: ja
• Data Source:
  • JaLC
  • NDL
  • CiNii Articles
  • KAKEN
• Abstract License Flag: Disallowed