Resources for Communication Problems

Saturday, January 26, 2008



Type and translate legend of Fig. 8.2 here.

We must do everything we can so as to bring some order into physical “reality.” We have chosen phenomena that can be measured and ordered with respect to each other.The color space is simply an ordering device that allows us to assign every possible color a specific position or point. The entire world of color is encompassed in the color space.Our next step now is to discover how the color words of a given language, say English or Navaho, fit into this space. Where are the colors in our space that answer to the name red? Obtaining replies to this type of question will be called mapping color terms into the color space. Naturally, every language is likely to have somewhat different maps; but the color space, which merely describes the psychophysical properties of colors, is or all of mankind.


(3) Names Mapped into Referent Spaces

Let us now consider how the words of the language of experience apply to the referents as we have ordered them into spaces. Much work has been done on color terminology and its relationship to the color space. Our task is twofold: we might start with a collection of color words in use by English speakers(for instance, by asking a sample of

340 Language and cognition

speakers to write down all the words for colors they can think of) and then try to assign each word a region in the color space; or we might sample the color space itself by selecting two hundred colors, evenly distributed throughout the space, and then show each color to a representative sample of speakers of English and ask them to write down the English word or words that best describe that color. Let us call the first procedure Approach A and the second Approach B.範例一:我們叫一群使用英文的人寫下所有他們所知道的色彩!將這些色彩標示在色彩圖表上!


When Approach A is used, we obtain a name-map that reflects the meaning of certain words in the lexicon of a natural language. This type of information must be distinguished from the actual use that speakers make of these words. It does not completely reveal the mechanism of naming. This becomes most obvious from the fact that Approach A leaves certain parts of the color space unmapped. There will be certain colors to which none of the words collected earlier( in the absence of color samples) properly refers. The operations that lead to such results are quite simple. Subjects are presented with comprehensive color charts (Brown and Lenneberg, 1954, used the Munsell book of colors) and are asked to point to all the colors that might be called x (brown, lavender, orange, etc.). There will be some words which some subjects cannot locate at all(say, heliotrope); he may not know what the word means, or there may be wide disagreement between subjects what the proper location of a word is (say, magenta). After having given all the words in our compilation to all our subjects we will discover that there is a residue of physical colors to which no one assigned any of the namesthe “ innominate regions.”


Now, when Approach B is used the “ innominate regions.” of the color space all but disappear. Although one or another subject may say “I don’t know what one calls that color,” there will be others who quite readily assign some descriptive phrase to any color shown. Approach B reflects much better the versatility or basic productivity inherent in the act of naming, while it provides at the same time some statistic on the actual usage in a given language.

Since subjects will differ among themselves in their precise naming-habit and since there will be colors that are ambiguous with respect to common names in English, colors will differ n their probability of being called x. In fact, many colors will be called by more than one name, each name having a different probability of being assigned to a given color.


Figure 8.3 shows how name maps are associated with a gradient of probability. This renders the structure of name maps always more complex than the structure of the referent space. The shape of the probability gradient itself can vary considerably as may be gathered from

III. Empirical study of naming: the language of experience 341 Fig. 8.3, and this is a variable that plays a definite role in the learning of names and in the ease of communication. I have shown experimentally(Lenneberg, 1957) that speakers of English do not only distribute their wordsin this case of colorsin a characteristic and language-specific way over the stimulus continuum, but that one can also elicit from subjects correct estimates of probability that a given stimulus will be given a specific name.

Fig 8.3 and legend missing here

If we take the color space and ask how does the word red fit into this continuum, it will appear that a certain circumscribed region of points. ….This paragraph ends on page 342 ….(each point represents a different shade of color) …usually several other maps.


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