An analysis of colour idioms in English: a comparison with Croatian

master's thesis

• Title (croatian): Analiza frazema s bojom kao komponentom u engleskom: usporedba s hrvatskim
• Author: Ena Tomičić
• Mentor: Janja Čulig (mentor)
• Committee member: Mateusz-Milan Stanojević (predsjednik povjerenstva)
• Committee member: Marina Grubišić (član povjerenstva)
• Committee member: Janja Čulig (član povjerenstva)
• Granter: University of Zagreb; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; (Department of English language and literature); Zagreb
• Defense date and country: 2022-09-20, Croatia
• Scientific / art field, discipline and subdiscipline: HUMANISTIC SCIENCES; Philology; Anglistics

Abstract

This master’s thesis aims to analyse those idioms in the English language that have a colour term as one of their components, and compare them to such idioms in Croatian. Colours are everywhere around us, while idioms are an element of language that is of particular interest to linguists. First, the term idiom was described, and the difference between the traditional and cognitive view on idiomatic language was presented. This was followed by a section on idiom motivation and the notion of conceptual metaphor and metonymy. Then, the concept of colour and the categorization of colour terms was described. Following that, the analysis of the idioms was conducted. The colour terms that were analysed were black/crna, white/bijela, red/crvena, blue/plava, green/zelena and yellow/žuta. The idioms were found in English and Croatian dictionaries and looked up in different English and Croatian language corpora. 63 English and 35 Croatian idioms were analysed, with most of them being culture and language specific. While some conceptual metaphors, such as PESSIMISM IS BLACK, were found to be common to both languages, others, such as SADNESS IS BLUE, were specific to only one language.

• Keywords: idioms; colour terms; cognitive linguistics; conceptual metaphor; metonymy
• Language: english
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:131:397055
• Study programme: Title: English Language and Literature (double major); specializations in: Linguistics, Literature and Culture, Translation, TEFL; Course: Linguistics; Study programme type: university; Study level: graduate; Academic / professional title: magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti (magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti)
• Type of resource: Text
• File origin: Born digital
• Access conditions: Open access
• Created on: 2022-09-22 18:02:16