{"id":37040,"date":"2014-08-11T20:09:16","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T20:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37040"},"modified":"2014-08-11T20:09:16","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T20:09:16","slug":"please-pass-me-the-skin-coloured-crayon-semantics-socialisation-and-folk-models-of-race-in-contemporary-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37040","title":{"rendered":"Please pass me the skin coloured crayon! Semantics, socialisation, and folk models of race in contemporary Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1016\/j.langsci.2014.07.011\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Please pass me the skin coloured crayon! Semantics, socialisation, and folk models of race in contemporary Europe<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/journal\/03880001\" target=\"_blank\">Language Sciences<\/a><br \/>\nAvailable online: 2014-08-06<br \/>\nDOI: <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1016\/j.langsci.2014.07.011\" target=\"_blank\">10.1016\/j.langsci.2014.07.011<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Martina Zimmermann<\/strong><br \/>\nInstitute of Multilingualism<br \/>\n<em>University of Fribourg, University of Teacher Education, Fribourg, Switzerland<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Carsten Levisen<\/strong><br \/>\nDepartment of Aesthetics and Communication<br \/>\n<em>Aarhus University, Denmark<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00fe\u00f3rhalla Gu\u00f0mundsd\u00f3ttir Beck<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>University of Iceland, H\u00e1sk\u00f3li \u00cdslands, Iceland<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cornelia van Scherpenberg<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen, M\u00fcnchen, Germany<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Explores the cultural semantics of colour words in four urban European communities.<\/li>\n<li>An idealised cognitive model of \u2018the colour of skin&#8217; shared across these languages.<\/li>\n<li>A link between the colour terms and the \u2018skin\u2019 prototype is intact.<\/li>\n<li>The sociovisual ideology embedded in the \u2018hautfarben\u2019 concept is powerful.<\/li>\n<li>Traces the origin of the skin-based colour concept to language socialisation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">This study explores the cultural semantics of colour words in the four urban, European communities of Munich, Berne, Aarhus, and Reykjavik, focussing on\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"sansserif\" style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\"><em>hautfarben<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">\u00a0(German),\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"sansserif\" style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\"><em>hutfarb<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">\u00a0(Bernese Swiss German),\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"sansserif\" style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\"><em>hudfarvet<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">\u00a0(Danish), and\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"sansserif\" style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\"><em>h<\/em><\/span><span class=\"sansserif\" style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\"><em>\u00fa\u00f0<\/em><\/span><span class=\"sansserif\" style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\"><em>litur<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">\u00a0(Icelandic), all of which can be translated as \u2018skin coloured\u2019. Unlike in English, where\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">skin coloured<\/em><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">\u00a0has fallen out of use due to its racist semantic profile, these words are still widely present within the four communities. Using evidence from a referential colour naming task and semi-structured interviews, our study seeks to reveal the linguistic worldviews and idealised cognitive models embedded in skin-based colour concepts in contemporary German and Scandinavian languages. Arguing that colour concepts are linguistic constructs through which speakers have learned to pay attention to their visual worlds, we trace the origin of the skin-based colour concept to language socialisation. Our study suggests that children&#8217;s use of crayons in pre-schools, homes, and kindergartens have a formative impact on the acquisition of colour concepts in general, and in particular, in acquiring a skin-based colour concept. Apart from \u2018crayon socialisation\u2019 and children&#8217;s drawing practices, our study points to one other salient aspect of meaning associated with the skin-based colour concept, namely socio-political discourses of multiculturalism, political correctness and racism. Some speakers find it \u2018natural\u2019 to use a skin-based colour concept while others find it \u2018racist\u2019. Yet regardless of an individual speaker&#8217;s views on the matter, they all appear to recognise the specific folk model of race, encoded in\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"sansserif\" style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\"><em>hautfarben<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">,\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"sansserif\" style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\"><em>hutfarb<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">,\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"sansserif\" style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\"><em>hudfarvet<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"sansserif\" style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\"><em>h\u00fa\u00f0litur<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">. In addition, based on the disagreement among speakers, we do find some evidence that discursive changes in German and Scandinavian languages could lead to similar changes as the ones which have taken place in English (i.e. the replacement of\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">skin coloured<\/em><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">\u00a0with\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">peach<\/em><span style=\"color: #2e2e2e;\">\u00a0or a similar construct). Skin-based colours in Germanic languages also offer new perspectives on visual semantics, the social origins of colour, and on the interface of language, sociality and colour.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read or purchase article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0388000114000746\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please pass me the skin coloured crayon! Semantics, socialisation, and folk models of race in contemporary Europe Language Sciences Available online: 2014-08-06 DOI: 10.1016\/j.langsci.2014.07.011 Martina Zimmermann Institute of Multilingualism University of Fribourg, University of Teacher Education, Fribourg, Switzerland Carsten Levisen Department of Aesthetics and Communication Aarhus University, Denmark \u00fe\u00f3rhalla Gu\u00f0mundsd\u00f3ttir Beck University of Iceland, H\u00e1sk\u00f3li [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,28,8,394],"tags":[17720,17722,17723,17719,17721],"class_list":["post-37040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-europe","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","tag-carsten-levisen","tag-cornelia-van-scherpenberg","tag-language-sciences","tag-martina-zimmermann","tag-thorhalla-gudmundsdottir-beck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}