Paper Title :Revealing Concepts of the Color “Black” and “White” -Based on Comparison Between English and Japanese Expressions

Author :Kosuke Nakashima

Article Citation :Kosuke Nakashima , (2023 ) " Revealing Concepts of the Color “Black” and “White” -Based on Comparison Between English and Japanese Expressions " , International Journal of Management and Applied Science (IJMAS) , pp. 28-33, Volume-9,Issue-10

Abstract : In many languages, the terms indicating the colors of black and white exist. And the images which people have toward them are common regardless of their languages. This paper especially focuses on English and Japanese verbal expressions and indicates the conceptual parallelism which English and Japanese speakers share. And this paper has adopted cognitive linguistics approach. This approach is based on the idea that our way of thinking is unconsciously reflected on our verbal expressions. As a result of this research, I have found that for both English and Japanese speakers black has negative concepts and white has positive ones. The root of the contrastive concepts has something to do with our perceptual system; sight. Black is a symbol of „darkness,‟ and not to be able to see anything makes us uncomfortable, scared, and uneasy. On the other hand, white is a symbol of „sunshine,‟ and sunshine brings us back the sight. These facts give us negative and positive concepts respectively toward black and white. Keywords - Black, Cognitive Linguistics, white, Conceptualization

Type : Research paper

Published : Volume-9,Issue-10

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