Colour Collocations in Corpora

8/13/2019 Colour Collocations in Corpora

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Colour Collocations

Lenka Koutn


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OUTLINE

Colour, collocation

Methodology Results

Conclusion


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Colour

Colour name:

- a word or phrase referring to a specific colour

Basic colour terms (Berlin and Kay, 1969):

- Monolexemic

- High-frequency- Agreed upon speakers of language


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Basic colour terms

Stage I: dark-cool and light-warm black andwhite

Stage II: red

Stage III: either greenor yellowStage IV: both green and yellow

Stage V: blue

Stage VI: brownStage VII: purple, pink, orange, or grey

(Berlin and Kay, 1969)


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Collocation

= tendency of words to co-occur

J.R. Firth:You shall judge a word by company it

keeps.

(Partington, 1998)


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Research Question

most frequent colour collocations inAmerican and British English according to

COCA and BNC

corpora and language acquisition of

colour terms


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BLACK (55721)

COCA BNC


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BLACK

black.[j*]

black people


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WHITE (41029)

COCA BNC


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White

I've tried to explain that anybody ina whitecoatlooks like a hospital attendant, but theykeep demanding results. [BNC:FAP:W_fict_prose]

She was grey haired, quite dumpy witha whitecoaton and she came to collect sperm if youwanted it stored. [BNC:K5D:W_newsp_other_report]

blue collarworkers to experience wage profilesthat arc in the West generally confinedto whitecollarprofessions. [BNC:EAX:W_non_ac_soc_science]


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RED (35060)

COCA BNC


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Red

He and the Yankees might have caught up to

the RedSoxin player development.

[COCA:2011:NEWS:USAToday]

Basketball stakes Obama's claim to beingAmerican just like RedSoxseats help Romney's

Boston cred. [COCA:2011:MAG:Newsweek]

He recommended that RedArmyyouths becomevillage teachers to counteract this trend.

[BNC:A64:W_ac_polit_law_edu]


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GREEN (20281)

COCA BNC


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Green

the results, taken as a whole, demonstratethat the greenformscheme represents aninvaluable social service and provides a source

of immediate legal advice [BNC:GVH:W_ac_polit_law_edu]

The Green Capital document urgesthat GreenBeltand Metropolitan Open Landbe protected, wildlife sites safeguarded andthe management of [BNC:A65:W_pop_lore]


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YELLOW (8576)

COCA BNC


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Yellow

This varies with the nature of the offence

(murder versus parking on a yellowline), the

strength and efficiency of the police and the

recording methods employed

[BNC:K8Y:W_misc]


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BLUE (19981)

COCA BNC


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Brown

with more massive, neighboring clumps

eject the smallest cores, and this results

in browndwarfsand isolated planets.

[COCA:2006:MAG:Astronomy]


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RESULT

Colour term COCA BNC

Black 55721 6998

White 41029 6189

Red 35060 4761

Yellow 8576 1355

Green 20281 3473

Blue 19981 3163

Brown 11927 1844


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References

Berlin, B., Kay, P. Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and

Evolution. University of California, Berkeley, 1969.

Partington, A. Patterns and Meanings: Using Corpora for

English Language Research and Teaching. Universita 'degli

Studi di Siena, 1998.

Davies, Mark. (2008-) The Corpus of Contemporary American

English: 450 million words, 1990-present. Available online

athttp://corpus.byu.edu/coca/.

Davies, Mark. (2004-) BYU-BNC. (Based on the British National

Corpus from Oxford University Press). Available online

athttp://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/.
http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/


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*Name the colour:

http://www.colornames.ch/wie/index.php

Thank you for your attention.
http://www.colornames.ch/wie/index.phphttp://www.colornames.ch/wie/index.php

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Colour Collocations in Corpora