Female and Male Russian Colour Vocabulary: A Preliminary Study Cover Image

Rosyjskie słownictwo barw u kobiet i mężczyzn (badania wstępne)
Female and Male Russian Colour Vocabulary: A Preliminary Study

Author(s): Danuta Stanulewicz, Ewa Komorowska
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warmińsko-Mazurskiego w Olsztynie
Keywords: colour terms; elicitation list task; metonymy; Russian; female and male vocabulary

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the paper is to present the results of a study of psychological salience of colour terms for women and men who are native speakers of Russian. In our study, we employed the elicitation list task which is a five-minute psychological test designed to determine which and to what degree colour terms are psychologically important to language users. There were 26 Russian speakers – 13 women and 13 men – who participated in the test. The test results provide us with adequate material to be used to analyze both quantitative and qualitative differences between the female and male colour lexicons, and additionally, to estimate the scope of these differences. The study confirms the observations made by other researchers, as well as the popular opinion that women have a richer selection of colour words at their disposal and that they actually know many more metonymic colour terms than men.

  • Issue Year: XIII/2022
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 287-302
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Polish