categorization of colour
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THE CATEGORIZATION OF COLOUR
The study of categorization in general, and colour categorization in particular, is linked to Cognitive Science and most accurately to Cognitive Linguistics.
The object of study of cognitive science are the brain processes of cognition,or the learning processes of our brain. Derived from Cognitive Science, Cognitive linguistics deals with how we perceive reality and how this reality we perceive is processed by the brain and reflected or expressed in language. Cognitive linguists study how we categorize and name the different elements in reality.
In their studies, cognitive linguists have tried to answer several questions, such as
Does language chape thought or does thought shape language?
To what extent do culture, environment and social issues constrain language?
Is language a product of social and cultural issues that shape it or is there an innate ability we all share, coming from our own physiological abilities, that builds language, independently from external issues.
and these questions have been dealt through two different points of view;on the one hand in the point of view of Linguistic Relativity, on the other hand in the point ov view of Linguistic Universals.
Linguistic relativity ideas were introduced by Whorf.
"The search for linguistic universals is fruitless in principle, as each language is semantically arbitrary relative to any other language"
Whorf basically claimed that language is strongly related to thought and thought is influenced by language...