Re: To Raymond (re: Uusisuom)

In a message dated 4/26/01 5:22:45 AM, yl112@CORNELL.EDU writes:

<< <thinking>  Actually, this is more a symbolism-reference than a
psychology-reference (I can't remember the psych-ref offhand), but J.C.
Cooper's _Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols_ discusses
color symbolism in various cultures (European, classical, Chinese,
Indian, Japanese, and sometimes others are mentioned). >>

    In our huge discussion of colors, my cognitive science professor said
that the most salient, the most vivid, and most widely known color is red,
and that people actually react differently to the color red.  The emotion it
attaches to is always powerful.  Purple has nothing attached to it, and many
languages don't have it.  Anyway, I think Daniel totally ignored my point not
about colors (which, true, is a small thing), but about metaphor, and the
different way different languages map metaphor.  I think a universal language
should be devoid of inherent metaphor, or at least only map the ones that are
almost universal.  But anyway, I've never checked his language for metaphors,
so I'm just assuming (and it's an easy assumption to make since most people
don't think of metaphor in language).

-David

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