The Attitudinal Significance of the Colour Term Kara in Turkish Culture

Abstract

Colour terms, in almost every society and culture, carry cultural value meanings related to people, events, situations, or beliefs. The word black (in Turkish kara) frames the nouns or verbs it qualifies beyond their literal colour meaning by associating them with different emotions, social approval and disapproval, and social significance, thus creating various layers of attitudinal meaning. The attitudinal function of language, which forms the evaluative function of interpersonal communication, is among the fundamental topics of discourse semantics. Based on the idea that the attitudinal interpretations of color words are universal and culture-specific, this study aims to identify the types of attitudinal values in proverbs and idioms containing the word kara. In order to determine the attitudinal interpretations of the word kara in Turkish culture, an analysis has been presented within the framework of the Appraisal Theory. For this purpose, the study focuses on the word kara as it appears in two different proverbs and idioms dictionaries, examining its attitudinal engagement functions. Using a descriptive research method, the study presents examples of emotional and cognitive evaluative language features in proverbs and idioms that include the word kara carrying attitudinal engagement meaning. The evaluation revealed that all three levels of attitudinal meaning as emotional impact, judgment and appreciation were encountered in these proverbs and idioms. Although the distribution of attitudinal meaning levels varied across the proverbs and idioms, judgment attitude in these figurative language elements, was found to be the most dominant. Additionally, it was concluded that these elements, while frequently reflecting a negative polarity in their cultural influence, also exhibit instances of positive polarity. These findings offer a distinct perspective on the role and significance of the colour term kara within the framework of cultural conceptualisation.