vdoc.pub_an-introduction-to-cognitive-linguistics

PROTOTYPES AND CATEGORIES 9
so-called focal colours for colour categorization. Berlin and Kay’s main
target was to refute the relativist hypothesis by establishing a hierarchy of
focal colours which could be regarded as universal. To support the universalist
claim they investigated 98 languages, 20 in oral tests and the rest based
on grammars and other written materials. In retrospect, their typological
findings, which in fact have not remained uncriticized, have lost some of
their glamour. However, the notion of focal colours, which emerged from
the experiments, now appears as one of the most important steps on the
way to the prototype model of categorization. We will therefore confine
our account of Berlin and Kay’s work to aspects relevant for the prototype
model, at the expense of typological details. 3
Focal colours
Like other researchers before them, Berlin and Kay worked with so-called
Munsell colour chips provided by a company of the same name. These chips
are standardized for the three dimensions which are relevant for our perception
of different colours, namely hue, brightness and saturation, of which
mainly the first two were tested. The advantage of using such standardized
colour samples rather than pieces of dyed cloth is that anthropological
and psychological tests become more objective, since they can be
repeated by other researchers and the findings of different tests can be compared.
The set of chips used by Berlin and Kay was composed of 329 colour
chips, 320 of which represented 40 different colours, or, more precisely,
40 hues, each divided up into eight different levels of brightness. The remaining
nine chips were white, black, and seven levels of grey. The chips were
set out on a card in the manner shown in Figure 1.1. The vertical axis in
the figure displays the various shades of brightness of one identical hue.
On the horizontal axis the chips are ordered in such a way that starting
from red the hues move through yellow-red to yellow through green-yellow
to green and so on.
With the help of the colour card Berlin and Kay set about testing how
speakers of the 20 selected languages categorized colours. In doing so, they
were not so much interested in the colour vocabulary in general, but rather
in a particular set of colour terms which met the following criteria: the terms
should consist of just one word of native origin (as opposed to greenish-blue
and turquoise); their application should not be restricted to a narrow class
of objects (as opposed, e.g., to English and German blond); the words
should come to mind readily and should be familiar to all or at least to
most speakers of a language (as opposed to, say, vermilion, magenta or indigo).