Orð og tunga - 08.07.2019, Blaðsíða 112

100 Orð og tunga
Lykilorð
táknmál, íslenskt táknmál, merkingarfræði, litaheiti, grunnlitaheiti, orðmyndun
Keywords
sign language, Icelandic sign language, semantics, colour terms, basic colour terms,
morphology
Abstract
Brent Berlin and Paul Kay brought a sea change in semantic studies of colour terms
when they published their book Basic Color Terms in 1969. Up to that point the domi-
nant view was that each language represented a unique conceptual organisation of
the world, a view supported by the fact that the colour spectrum is a continuum
which provides not obvious breaks for the purposes of naming. Despite the many
criticisms of their work which have followed, their methodology has proven ex-
tremely infl uential and been widely adopted. The project Evolution of Semantic Sys-
tems, 2011–2012, adopted their methodology for a study of colour terms in the Indo-
European languages and the Colours in Context project applied the same methods
to a study of Icelandic Sign Language. Signed languages diff er in many ways from
spoken languages but the results of this study suggest the broad organisation of the
colour space is the same in Icelandic Sign Language, Icelandic and British English.
The colour space is organised by a few dominant terms, largely the same as Berlin
and Kay´s original basic colour terms. Yet within that broad patt ern is considerable
microvariation, especially in the spaces between the dominant terms. There the char-
acteristic patt erns of word formation in the language have a clear infl uence in colour
naming strategies.
Þórhalla Guðmundsdótt ir Beck
Íslensku- og menningardeild
Hugvísindadeild Háskóla Íslands
thgbeck@gmail.com
Matt hew James Whelpton
Mála- og menningardeild
Hugvísindadeild Háskóla Íslands
Veröld - Hús Vigdísar
IS-107 Reykjavík
whelpton@hi.is
tunga_21.indb 100 19.6.2019 16:56:07