A
Study on Basic Color Terms: Lexico-Semantic Development in Japanese-English
Bilinguals in New York
A. Tanaka & H. Mizuno |
This
study was concerned with Japanese children's lexico-semantic development
in English. Color terms were selected as the domain of this study.
First, Japanese color names were elicited from subjects, aged 10
and 11 by asking them to write down as many color terms as they could
think of within 30 seconds. The obtained: order of color terms was
interpreted within the framework of Berlin and Kay's (1969) universal
hierachy of color terms. Also, Miller and Johnson-Laird's (1976) "landmark-color" hypothesis
and Rosch's (1973) "prototype" theory provided some account
of the results. The same subjects were also asked to respond to the
emotive tone of Japanese and English color terms. Some systematicity
was observed in their responses. It was argued that the systematicity
would be attributed to: (i) universal sensations inherent in a given
color; (ii) cultural transmission; (iii) area-specific socio-cultural
conditions, and (iv) idiosyncratic, personal experiences (cf. Hayakawa,
1953).
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