Paper Title
Revealing Concepts of the Color “Black” and “White” -Based on Comparison Between English and Japanese Expressions
Abstract
In many languages, the terms indicating the colors of black and white exist. And the images which people have
toward them are common regardless of their languages. This paper especially focuses on English and Japanese verbal
expressions and indicates the conceptual parallelism which English and Japanese speakers share. And this paper has adopted
cognitive linguistics approach. This approach is based on the idea that our way of thinking is unconsciously reflected on our
verbal expressions. As a result of this research, I have found that for both English and Japanese speakers black has negative
concepts and white has positive ones. The root of the contrastive concepts has something to do with our perceptual system;
sight. Black is a symbol of „darkness,‟ and not to be able to see anything makes us uncomfortable, scared, and uneasy. On the
other hand, white is a symbol of „sunshine,‟ and sunshine brings us back the sight. These facts give us negative and positive
concepts respectively toward black and white.
Keywords - Black, Cognitive Linguistics, white, Conceptualization