Cover not available

In:Colour Studies: A broad spectrum
Edited by Wendy Anderson, Carole P. Biggam, Carole Hough and Christian Kay
[Not in series 191] 2014
► pp. 258–272

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Axiological aspects of Polish colour vocabulary

A study of associations

 | University of Gdansk
 | University of Szczecin
 | University of Wroclaw, Poland
Published online: 26 November 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.191.17sta
The aim of this paper is to investigate axiological attributes of Polish colour terms. We pose the following questions: Which colours are evaluated mostly positively, negatively and neutrally? Are there objects which are provided as both positive and negative associations of a single colour? Are the same associations evoked by different colours? We carried out a questionnaire among fifty Polish speakers. The results point to colours which are perceived most positively (green, blue and orange), negatively (grey and black), neutrally (brown), and ambivalently (red). Moreover, an association may be classified as positive, neutral or negative (e.g. blood associated with red). One association may also be provided for two colours, e.g. death as a negative association with black and white.
References (34)
Ampel-Rudolf, Mirosława. 1994. Kolory: Z badań leksykalnych i semantyczno-składniowych języka polskiego [Colours: Lexical and Semanto-syntactic Investigations]. Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berlin, Brent, and Paul Kay. 1969. Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bjelajeva, Inna. 2005. Niepodstawowe nazwy barw w języku polskim, czeskim, rosyjskim i ukraińskim [Non-basic Colour Terms in Polish, Czech, Russian and Ukrainian]. Warszawa: Wydział Polonistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corbett, Greville G., and Ian R.L. Davies. 1997. “Establishing Basic Color Terms: Measures and Techniques.” In Hardin and Maffi, 197–223.
Duczmal, Stanisław. 1979. “A Contrastive Semantic Analysis of Colour Adjectives in Polish and English.” Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics 9: 181–191.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hardin, Clyde L., and Luisa Maffi (eds). 1997. Color Categories in Thought and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kay, Paul, Brent Berlin, Luisa Maffi, and William Merrifield. 1997. “Color Naming across Languages.” In Hardin and Maffi, 21–56.
Kay, Paul, Brent Berlin, and William Merrifield. 1991. “Biocultural Implications of Systems of Color Naming.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 1/1: 12–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kay, Paul, and Luisa Maffi. 1999. “Color Appearance and the Emergence and Evolution of Basic Color Lexicons.” American Anthropologist 101 (4): 743–760. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kay, Paul, and Chad K. McDaniel. 1978. “The Linguistic Significance of the Meanings of Basic Color Terms.” Language 54 (3): 610–646. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Komorowska, Ewa. 2010. Barwa w języku polskim i rosyjskim: Rozważania semantyczne [Colour in Polish and Russian: Semantic Considerations]. Szczecin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Komorowska, Ewa, and Danuta Stanulewicz. 2010. “Psychologiczne znaczenie polskich i ukraińskich nazw barw – porównanie wyników badań testowych [Psychological Salience of Polish and Ukrainian Colour Terms – a Comparison of Test Results].” In Język, tożsamość i komunikacja międzykulturowa. Księga Pamiątkowa ofiarowana Doktor Bożenie Zinkiewicz-Tomanek, ed. by Ewa Komorowska, and Danuta Stanulewicz, 138–154. Szczecin: Volumina.pl Daniel Krzanowski.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kopaliński, Władysław. 2007 [1990]. Słownik symboli [A Dictionary of Symbols]. Warszawa: HPS, Rzeczpospolita.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzeszowski, Tomasz P. 1997. Angels and Devils in Hell: Elements of Axiology in Semantics. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Energeia.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Molchanova, Olga (ed.). 2003. Linguistics across Culture. Szczecin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morita, Koji. 2010. “Nazwy barw w języku japońskim i polskim [Colour Terms in Japanese and Polish].” In Relatywizm w języku i kulturze, ed. by Anna Pajdzińska, and Ryszard Tokarski, 157–164. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mozolewska, Anna. 2010. “Colour Terms and Emotions in English and Polish”.Beyond Philology 7: 77–102.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nilsson, Barbro, and Ewa Teodorowicz-Hellman (eds). 1997. Nazwy barw i wymiarów. Colour Terms and Measure Terms: Swedish-Polish Linguistic Conference on the Semantics of Colour and Measure Expression. Stockholm, 1996.04. Stockholm: Stockholm University, Slavic Institute.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pawłowski, Adam. 2006. “Quantitative Linguistics in the Study of Colour Terminology: A Research Report.” In Progress in Colour Studies I: Language and Culture, ed. by Carole P. Biggam, and Christian J. Kay, 37–55. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Płomińska, Małgorzata. 2003. Farben und Sprache: Deutsche und polnische Farbbezeichnungen aus kontrastiver Sicht [Colours and Language: German and Polish Colour Terms in a Contrastive Perspective]. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siekierska, Krystyna. 1992. “Barwy staropolskiej przyrody [Colours of Nature in Old Polish].” In Studia historyczno-językowe i dialektologiczne, ed. by Marian Kucała, and Jerzy Reichan, 19–42. Kraków: Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Języka Polskiego.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simmons, David R. 2011. “Colour and Emotion.” In New Directions in Colour Studies, ed. by Carole P. Biggam, Carole A. Hough, Christian J. Kay, and David R. Simmons, 395–412. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stanulewicz, Danuta. 2003. “Blue in English and Polish.” In Europa der Sprachen: Sprachkompetenz – Mehrsprachigkeit – Translation. Akten des 35. Linguistischen Kolloquiums in Innsbruck 2000. Teil I: Sprache und Gesellschaft, ed. by Lew N. Zybatow, 213–222. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Polish Colour Terms referring to Blue: A Corpus View.” In Further Insights into Semantics and Lexicography, ed. by Ulf Magnusson, Henryk Kardela, and Adam Głaz, 87–99. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. Colour, Culture and Language: Blue in Polish. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010a. “Grey in English and Polish.” In Wschód–Zachód. Literature and Linguistics: Theory and Practice, ed. by Adriana Biedroń, and Dorota Werbińska, 43–52. Słupsk: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Akademii Pomorskiej w Słupsku.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010b. “Płeć a psychologiczne znaczenie nazw barw występujących w polszczyźnie (badania wstępne) [Gender and Psychological Salience of Polish Colour Terms (Preliminary Investigations)].” In Barwa w języku, kulturze i literaturze I, ed. by Ewa Komorowska, and Danuta Stanulewicz, 107–122. Szczecin: Volumina.pl Daniel Krzanowski.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Szczęk, Joanna. 2010. “O symbolicznej funkcji barw w języku i kulturze – niemiecko-polskie studium porównawcze [On the Symbolic Function of Colours in Language and Culture – a German-Polish Contrastive Study].” In Barwa w języku, kulturze i literaturze I, ed. by Ewa Komorowska, and Danuta Stanulewicz, 93–106. Szczecin: Volumina.pl Daniel Krzanowski.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Szczygłowska, Tatiana. 2003. “A short English-Polish Contrastive Analysis of the Relationship between the Continuum of Colours and the Continuum of Emotions.” Linguistica Silesiana 24: 89–107.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Teodorowicz-Hellman, Ewa. 1998. “Teoria prototypów a nazwy barw w języku polskim i szwedzkim: Obrazy konceptualne nazw barw a ich eksplikacje językowe [The Prototype Theory and Colour Terms in Polish and Swedish: Conceptualizations of Colours and their Linguistic Explications]”. Polonica 19: 75–91.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. “Zielony i niebieski w języku polskim w porównaniu z grön i blå w szwedzkim [Green and Blue in Polish in comparison with grön and blå in Swedish]”. In Studia z semantyki porównawczej: Nazwy barw, nazwy wymiarów, predykaty mentalne. Part I, ed. by Renata Grzegorczykowa, and Krystyna Waszakowa, 73–92. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tokarski, Ryszard. 2004 [1995]. Semantyka barw we współczesnej polszczyźnie [The Semantics of Colours in Contemporary Polish]. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Waszakowa, Krystyna. 2000. “Podstawowe nazwy barw i ich prototypowe odniesienia: Metodologia opisu porównawczego [Basic Colour Terms and their Prototypical References: The Methodology of Comparative Description].” In Studia z semantyki porównawczej: Nazwy barw, nazwy wymiarów, predykaty mentalne. Part I, ed. by Renata Grzegorczykowa, and Krystyna Waszakowa, 17–28. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zaręba, Alfred. 1954. Nazwy barw w dialektach i historii języka polskiego [Colour Terms in the History and Dialects of the Polish Language]. Wrocław: Ossolineum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Stanulewicz, Danuta & Adam Pawłowski
2018. Colour and ideology. In Progress in colour studies, ► pp. 241 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue