"Statistical analysis of cross-language color naming data."

“跨语言颜色命名数据的统计分析。”

• 批准号: 0130420
• 负责人: Paul Kay
• 金额: $ 12万
• 依托单位: International Computer Science Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-03-15 至 2006-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0130420&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Statistical; analysis; cross; language; color

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Paul Kay and Terry Regier will build a web-accessible database to test the hypothesis of universal constraints on color naming across languages. Anthropologists and linguists used to think that the meanings of color words (e.g., "red", "black", etc.) differ arbitrarily from language to language. It was also thought that these words, rather than being constrained by biological constants of human color perception, vary arbitrarily across cultures and that the words cause speakers of different languages to see color differently. A 1969 study by Kay and colleagues challenged this view, maintaining that patterns in color naming across languages reveal certain constants. That study was followed up by the NSF-supported World Color Survey, in which data on color naming in 110 unwritten languages were gathered in the field by linguists highly familiar with the languages. The World Color Survey resulted in a number of publications, generally supporting the view of universal constraints on color naming. Because these data were collected in the early days of computers, they were not entered into a uniform database that would make them amenable to comprehensive statistical testing or to web publication. The current project will (1) convert the World Color Survey data to a uniform database, (2) make this database available to everyone via the web, and (3) perform comprehensive statistical testing on the data to test hypotheses about color naming.The question of universal constraints on systems of color naming has broad implications. Color words provide a natural laboratory in cross-language comparison of meanings because their meanings - colors - can be specified in a scientific system of description that is independent of any particular natural language. Color has thus been the vocabulary domain most often cited both by proponents of linguistic/cultural relativity and by their opponents, who tend to emphasize biologically and evolutionary based universals in human behavior. As a consequence, color words have come to occupy a special position in the very general nature versus nurture debate, a controversy within the biological and social sciences, as well as the general educated public and many issues of public policy, at least since Darwin. Increased scientific clarity with regard to universality versus arbitrariness in color naming is consequently of general interest.

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Paul Kay和Terry Regier博士将建立一个可通过网络访问的数据库，以测试跨语言颜色命名的普遍约束的假设。人类学家和语言学家曾经认为颜色词的含义（例如，“红色”、“黑色”等）在不同的语言中有着不同的定义。人们还认为，这些词并不受人类颜色感知的生物常数的限制，而是在不同文化中任意变化，这些词使不同语言的人看到不同的颜色。1969年，Kay和同事的一项研究对这一观点提出了挑战，他们认为不同语言中颜色命名的模式揭示了某些常量。该研究随后由NSF支持的世界颜色调查，其中110种非书面语言的颜色命名数据由非常熟悉这些语言的语言学家收集。世界颜色调查导致了一些出版物，普遍支持颜色命名的普遍限制的观点。由于这些数据是在计算机出现初期收集的，因此没有输入统一的数据库，无法进行全面的统计测试或在网上公布。目前的项目将（1）将世界颜色调查数据转换为统一的数据库，（2）通过网络向每个人提供该数据库，（3）对数据进行全面的统计测试，以测试关于颜色命名的假设。颜色命名系统的普遍约束问题具有广泛的含义。颜色词提供了一个跨语言意义比较的天然实验室，因为它们的意义-颜色-可以在一个独立于任何特定自然语言的科学描述系统中指定。因此，颜色是语言/文化相对论的支持者和反对者最常引用的词汇领域，他们倾向于强调人类行为中基于生物学和进化的共性。因此，至少从达尔文开始，颜色词就在生物科学和社会科学、受过教育的公众以及许多公共政策问题中占据了一个特殊的位置。因此，关于颜色命名中的普遍性与任意性的科学清晰度的提高引起了普遍的兴趣。