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Procedía - Social and Behavioral Sciences 70 (2013) 11 - 17
Akdeniz Language Studies Conference 2012
A corpus analysis of color-term conceptual metaphors in
Persian proverbs
Mohammad Aliakbaria*, Fereshteh Khosravianb
a'b English Department of Ilam University, Ilam 69315-516, Iran
Abstract
This study investigated the distribution of color terms in Persian proverbs in three Iranian proverbs books and their metaphoric reflection in the users' beliefs, ideas, or values. Through investigating as many as 4710 proverbs in the pertinent books, a corpus of 56 Persian proverbs with color terms in content was selected and analyzed. The results suggested that colors are not distributed equally in Persian proverbs and that they stood for both positive and negative connotations. Since metaphoric expressions are inseparable feature of scientific and non-scientific writings, language users are suggested to attain adequate awareness of these expressions in different domains.
© 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of ALSC 2012
Keywords: Color terms; Persian proverbs; user's beliefs; conceptual metaphor
1. Introduction
Metaphor is the main mechanism through which one can comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning and the metaphor system is central to one's understanding of experience and to the way s/he acts on that understanding (Lakoff, 1992). Though conceptual metaphor is a conventionalized mapping between two different domains of experience (Lonneker-Rodman, 2007), some metaphorical concepts seem to be universal, others are widespread, and some seem to be culture-specific (Lakoff, 1992). Amid these metaphoric concepts, color terms are widely used in different language genres in literal or metaphoric senses and may reflect cultural identities of the language users (Lan and MacGregor, 2009). The frequent use of such expressions makes it right to impose that metaphor appears to be anywhere, in riddles, folk expressions and proverbs, clichés, literal words, slang, and poems (Bartel, 1983). Proverbs as one of the smallest ubiquitous folklore genres have been collected and studied since
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +98-918-341-3283; fax: +98-841-223-8528. E-mail address: maltakbart@hotmatl.com.
1877-0428 © 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of ALSC 2012 doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.033
the beginning of written records (Mieder, 2005). Proverb is a literary genre which has a rich communicative function. The frequent use of proverbs in spoken and written texts accounts for their important role in conveying meaning. Needless to say that misunderstanding the proverbs and their metaphoric meaning may result to communication failure.
Most of the studies (Adams and Osgood, 1973; Hupka, Zaleski, Otto, Reidl, and Tarabrina, 1997; Bottomley and Doyle, 2006; Koller, 2008; Gieron-Czepczor, 2010 to mention only a few) accomplished on conceptual metaphor of colors have either focused on some particular colors in western languages or done in the context of casual or written discourse. Due to the lack of studies conducted on the use, frequency, and distribution of conceptual metaphor of all colors across languages in general and Persian in particular, the present study investigated the conceptual metaphor of colors frequently used in proverbs by Iranian Persian speakers to recognize the most frequent colors and the commonest conceptualizations those colors associate with.
2. Statement of the Problem
As stated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), there are cross-cultural differences in conceptual systems and different cultures institutionalize different ways of comprehending experience via conceptual metaphor. Such differences would typically be reflected in linguistic differences. Studies have shown that in certain cases a given concept may be realized differently among people who apply them. For instance, regarding the concept of animals, owl is a symbol of wisdom in English literature, but, a symbol of misfortune in Persian literature. Such differences are somewhat conspicuous concerning colors. For example, green is mostly a sign of envy in English literature (Richards, 2005), but it frequently connotes preciousness in Persian literature. Such mismatches among different cultures or languages can lead to a kind of confusion, especially in working with more essential matters such as reading literature and scientific texts or articles. To account for the probable misunderstanding, this study tried to present a vivid picture of the conceptual metaphor of colors in the case of proverbs to seek conspicuity of the Persian texts for the readers. As an exploratory study of the conceptual metaphor of colors in Persian proverbs, this research pursued the following goals: to analyze the proverbs in terms of the colors, to examine the distribution of colors among Iranian proverbs, to investigate Iranian's conceptualizations associated with colors, and to observe whether their attitudes toward colors are positive or negative.
With regard to what has already been stated and based on the objectives of the research, the following research questions were sought to answer:
1. How balanced is the use of color terms in Persian proverbs?
2. To what extent are users' beliefs, ideas, or values reflected in their use of colour metaphors?
3. To what extent the colour terms used in metaphoric proverbs express positive or negative connotations?
3. Method
It was taken about four months to conduct the research and to record the data. To collect the corpus of the study, among all the relevant books, three were picked out, namely "The best Persian proverbs" by Salahshour (1994), "The famous proverbs ofIran" by Soheili (2005), and "Persian proverbs" by Sarvari Fakhr (2006). The rationale behind the selection of these three proverb books was primarily their availability and recommendation provided by a number of Persian literature professors in Ilam University. Through the investigation of the entire proverbs in the pertinent books, among 4710 proverbs, only 56 of them including the color terms or the connoting words of colors comprised the corpus. For the ease of analysis, they were numbered from 1 to 56. The quantity of the corpus seemed to be adequate for
the purpose of the study. In order to evaluate the accuracy of the conceptualizations of colors within the proverbs, two Master students of Persian Literature were asked to evaluate what the metaphors conceptualized. In case they were in conflict regarding a concept, another rater, who was also a Persian Literature Master student, was asked to check the suggestions and make the final decision on possible connotation. They also gave their ideas about the positive and negative attribute of the included colors in the selected proverbs.
4. Results
The corpus was analyzed quantitatively for the number of colors in proverbs in the above mentioned Persian books. Subsequently, an effort was made to discover the commonest conceptualizations associated with the special colors included in the proverbs. Color proverbs were also examined for their positive or negative connotations. The frequency of color proverbs, their frequent conceptualizations, and the number of proverbs for each conceptualization are presented in table 1.
Table 1. The frequent conceptualizations of colors
Colours Freq. Possible Conceptualizations Proverb No.
Black 26 • absurdity 11
• badness 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 20, 22, 25
• calamity 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 14, 20, 21, 24, 26
• denier 7
• impertinence 16
• non-preciousness 1, 19, 25
• ominousness 2, 18, 21
• poverty 2, 8, 23
• shame 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17
• sorrow 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 17, 20, 22, 25
White 15 • experience 38
• eye catcher 37
• fear 33
• immaculacy 27, 29, 31, 35, 36, 39
• luckiness 30, 41
• termination 32, 40
Green 5 • eternality 43
• hope 44
• preciousness 42, 45, 46
Red 5 • great expectations 51
• perseverance 47
• preciousness 49, 50
Yellow 4 • anguish 54, 55
• deception 53
• postponement 52
Violet 1 • rage, frustration 56
Total 56
5. Discussion and Conclusion
Concerning the first research question, to check for the portion of color proverbs among Persian proverbs, all the proverbs in the aforementioned books were counted. As the data specifies from the total number of 4710 proverbs, only 56 contained color terms and were thus brought to further investigation. As for the balance of the frequency of different color terms in the corpus, table 2 illustrates the proportion of each color in the corpus.
Table 2. Frequency of colors in Persian proverbs
Colours Black White Green Red Yellow Violet Total
Frequency 26 15 5 5 4 1 56
Percent 46 27 9 9 7 2 100
As demonstrated in table 2, black with the frequency of 26 was the most frequent color in the investigated proverbs. The next frequent color with 15 times occurrence was white. Green, red, yellow, and violet with the frequency of 5, 5, 4, and 1 were the following colors respectively. Regarding the second and the third research questions, black was primarily associated with something evil as could be seen in examples 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 20, 22, 25. Calamity and sorrow were two other implied meanings connected with this color as were found in the following examples correspondingly 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 14, 20, 21, 24, 26 and 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 17, 20, 22, 25. Examples number 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 17 were evidence for another connotation of black that was shame. Non-preciousness, ominousness, and poverty were the other conceptualizations of black that were discovered in the same number of examples such as 1, 19, 25; 2, 18, 21, and 2, 8, 23 respectively. Finally, absurdity, denier, and impertinence were further conceptual interpretations of black in examples 11, 7, and 16. On the basis of all these associations, it can be claimed that black was mostly considered as a negative color in the given corpus.
White, as the second frequent color in the corpus, was typically exhibited immaculacy, cleanness, and goodness in examples 27, 29, 31, 35, 36, and 39. It also symbolized luckiness in the proverbs number 30 and 41. Through the examination of the other proverbs containing this color experience and eye catcher were associated with as well. In addition to these aforementioned positive conceptualizations, it signified two negative attributes of fear (example 33) and termination in examples 32 and 40. As observed in the taxonomy, the third and fourth mostly used colors discovered in the proverbs of the corpus were green and red. Green primarily represented preciousness as can be observed in examples 42, 45, and 46. Moreover, eternality and hope were associated with it in examples 43 and 44. Hence it looks right to argue that green as the color of nature is essentially taken a positive color. Red, the color of passion and love, mostly signified preciousness based on the examples 49 and 50 of the pertinent corpus. It came across that it connoted great expectations and perseverance as well and was considered as a positive color (examples 51 and 47). Yellow with the frequency of 4 was the next color of the corpus. As demonstrated in examples 54 and 55, anguish was the conceptualization typically associated with this color. Established upon the analysis of the proverbs found in the abovementioned books, yellow could be regarded as a negative color since it mostly connoted deception and postponement (proverbs numbers 53 and 52). The last color in the corpus was violet (frequency: 1) and as observed in the last proverb (example 56), it signified rage and frustration. Consequently, violet can also be considered as a negative color on the basis of the analysis of the colors observed in the proverbs of the study.
Put the findings in the nutshell, the results of the study confirmed that the distribution of color terms among Persian proverbs is varied. As shown in table 2, 46 percent of the total color term conceptual metaphors in Persian proverbs belongs to black, 27 percent to white, 9 percent to green, 9 percent to red, and 2 percent to violet. Moreover, people's opinions, thoughts, and values are scrupulously reflected in
their use of color metaphors. So that green and red are often considered as positive; black, yellow, and violet as negative; and white as both positive and negative in metaphoric use. Having all these in mind, it is hoped that the obtained results in the present study would function accurately as an instrument for efficiently preventing the plausible misinterpretation while reading various kinds of texts in Persian. However, the main limitations that should be addressed concerning the study are the limited number of the corpus and the concentration on only Persian language. Considering these limitations, it is suggested that the study be replicated with a larger corpus from two or more linguistic and cultural backgrounds to check if the same findings will be reached for the conceptual metaphor theory.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Soodabeh Seidi, Elaheh Aghakhani, and Masoomeh Nadi for their insightful comments.
References
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Appendix. The literal translation of Persian proverbs containing colour terms as the corpus of the study
1. The servant you had was black.
2. It does not rain from black cats pray.
3. From white chalk, to black coal
4. If you say yogurt is white, I will say it's black.
5. There is no colour higher than black.
6. The black soil deposition
7. The end of the black night is white.
8. The white money for the black day
9. Pretty mole is black and so is the pepper seed, both are heart-rending, but where is this and where is that?
10. It was good to test the experience, to be black who tells a lie.
11. Send to black chickpea
12. One pot say to another pot: Your face is black, the tripod says: Sale Ala
13. Blackened out
14. The begg^'s face is black but his bag is full
15. The liar's face is black.
16. To beat someone's black crow
17. The winter went and the coal remained black.
18. Black palate
19. To coin a black money
20. The crows have worn black for you, too.
21. The one who is beaten by a snake frightens of black and white string.
22. He looks like a black cloud
23. The white hair laughed at the one's beard who said there is no colour higher than black.
24. Someone's deeds letter to be black
25. The sun will never be hotter than this and the servant will not be darker (blacker) than this!
26. Every black fortune is white fortune for forty days.
27. From white chalk, to black coal
28. If you say yogurt is white, I will say it's black.
29. If I am ashamed in front of everyone, I have a white face in front of the doer.
30. The end of the black night is white.
31. The white money for the black day
32. White hair is a message of death.
33. His/her colour was as white as chalk.
34. White of white: it costs a hundred, red and white: three hundred, now that's tan's turn, it is worth everything.
35. White dog is cotton seller's harm.
36. White cassock is white cassock
37. It is a white forehead cow
38. She does not make her hair white in the mill!
39. The one who is beaten by a snake frightens of black and white string.
40. The white hair laughed at the one's beard who said there is no colour higher than black.
41. Every black fortune is white fortune for forty days.
42. Poor's gift is a green leaf.
43. His/her place is green.
44. To show the door of green garden.
45. The red tongue will cut the green head.
46. White of white: it costs a hundred, red and white: three hundred, now that's tan's turn, it is worth everything.
47. To red one's face with a slap
48. The red tongue cuts the green head.
49. White of white: it costs a hundred, red and white: three hundred, now that's tan's turn, it is worth everything.
50. Red apple is good for the crippled hand?
51. We see red crow but not its tablecloth!
52. The sun falls yellow, the lazy falls prompt.
53. Yellow dog is the brother of the jackal.
54. Greed brings yellow colour to the men!
55. The greed has a yellow face.
56. He/she got violet like an eggplant.
