The motivation of Albanian phraseological expressions containing color words

• Author: Arben Gaba
• Position: 'Eqrem Cabej' University, Department of Foreign Languages, English Branch, Faculty of Education and Social Sciences
• Pages: 212-218

212

Vol. 3 No. 3

January, 2018

Balkan Journal of Interdisciplinary Research

IIPCCL Publishing, Graz-Austria

ISSN 2410-759X

Acces online at www.iipccl.org

The motivation of Albanian phraseological expressions containing color

words

Arben Gaba

“Eqrem Cabej” University, Department of Foreign Languages, English Branch, Faculty of

Education and Social Sciences

Abstract

Figurative language is an undeniable part of life. We encounter it not only in poetry but

almost in all types of literary output. In recent years it has been extensively researched as it

has been the subject of many elds, such as, psychology, cultural anthropology and cognitive

linguistics to name a few. Our paper discusses a set of gurative expressions, colour idioms,

in the Albanian language. The study concerns the dierent types of motivation (metaphoric\

metonymic or cultural) lying at the heart of Albanian phraseological expressions containing

colour words.

Keywords: metaphor, motivation, idiom, cultural symbol.

1. Introduction

Colour has always been the subject of much of our interaction with the outside world.

Even though it is merely a scientic coincidence that blue denes our planet, (thanks to

its short wavelength) yet the full spectrum contributes to the complete light spectacle

that surrounds us. Being of a certain colour is a sign of life, of being active, specic

and even controversially enough, downright opaque. “All that is alive tends toward

color, individuality, specicity, eectiveness, and opacity; all that is done with life

inclines toward knowledge, abstraction, generality, transguration, and transparency”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .When used in our everyday speech colour terms are

undoubtedly impregnated with cultural connotations. Dierent nations with dierent

cultural backgrounds have dierent perceptions of various colours. Despite the fact that,

quite paradoxically, at a physiological level all human beings’ eyes contain simply three

kinds of cones, each with a dierent pigment, we name the various wavelengths found

in the electromagnetic spectrum in dierent ways. “Eyes do not register wavelength

the way a thermometer registers temperature” PINKER (1994: 62). The dierent

perceptions of colour we have result in a series of dierent associative meanings. In

the recent years gurative language has been extensively researched. The vast body

of literature bears witness to this fact (GIBBS, 1989; MOON, 1998 DOBROVOL’SK &

PIIRAINEN, 2005). Among the dierent categories of gurative expressions, idioms

and metaphors have garnered a lot of scholarly interest. Our article talks about the

issue of the motivation underpinning idioms and metaphors through the analysis of a

group of colour expressions in the Albanian language. The reason why we chose this

domain is due to the fact that colour is a basic domain; this domain is highly culture-

specic and quite sizeable in terms of size.

Idioms but also metaphors were our gurative expressions of choice because they