Recently there has been a great interest to color designation. The researchers deal with emotional- psychological, ethno-linguistic aspects of color, color designation.In the national consciousness of the Kazakhs a significant place is given to the symbolism of color. The system of color designations and color symbols is one of the basic codes in the traditional world view of any ethnos. The development of colors is closely related to the very perception of the world. The purpose of the article is to study the specifics of the national worldview on the example of the concepts of «brown» and «yellow» with the study of the information accumulated in them. Exploring the color naming mainly denotative meaning,it is impossible to display the richness of their semantic and stylistic hue. Therefore, speaking about color as a concept, we take into account not only its basic meaning, but the whole system of additional connotations, concepts, associations, variations, which form a kind of semantic field that displays the entire palette of hues of one color, in fact, is a concept of a color.By means of associative experiment specific features of the structure of these color concepts are revealed. Each language is characterized by a different number of color concepts. The authors conclude that the concept of «color» is a component of the language picture of the world, which presents the distinctive national-specific features of the mentality of a certain ethnic group.
The spiritual treasure of every nation is its language. The Kazakh language is not only the richest, sounding, beautiful, but also recognized as a heritage of the great knowledge and science. And Kazakh people are most civilized persona of a high intelligence. Knowledge, attitudes, traditions, culture, national identity, and worldview is entrenched in a language. In the Kazakh ancient scripts modern concepts and notions in technology, science and medicine have been depicted long ago. If to take a color қоңыр/qoñır (brown) which is defined in science as a comparatively neutral color, in Kazakh culture қоңыр тірлік/ qoñır tirlik (ordinary lifestyle), қоңыр шаруа/ qoñır şarwa (daily chores), қоңыр əн, саз, күй/ qoñır än, saz, küy (a common song, music, playing melody). Every language serves as the main tool of information storage, education, processing, culture and tradition.
The Kazakh people have a different attitude towards color сары/sarı (yellow). Sarı is a sign of intelligence and wisdom, gratitude, patience: Сабыр түбі – сары алтын/ Sabır tübi – sarı altın (Patience is a plaster for all sores); сарғайған жетер мұратқа/ sarğayğan jeter muratqa (With time and patience the leaf of the mulberry becomes satin.). On the one hand, it symbolizes solace and hope; on the other, sorrow.
Studies in modern anthropocentric field have become one of the most important issues to investigate in correlation with language and nation, language and culture, language and thinking, language and psychology. Color categories and the role of language in color discrimination have attracted the attention of numerous Kazakh scholars in recent decades. The latest research in color categorization has focused on the mechanisms that are at the core of perceptional distinctions in natural languages. The expression of basic color categories, the linguistic semantics of color words, the cultural representation of color, and the extension of color meaningis of great interest today. Color words and expressions with figurative meaning and lexemes with metaphorical meaning are exceptional in that they link language to mind, and culture to society. The significance of color words in that they have an objective description of the colorful world image and serve as the main category of folk culture, full of valuable and pragmatic connotations.
In modern linguistics, we often come across with the notion of concept as a forming element of the linguistic world image. Language connects people by concepts like a nation or ethnos (V.Maslova). The message produced by a native speaker is sometimes a unique sample of verbal communication and a specific conceptual system. The concept is a mental system. It denotes the fundamental mental entities realized in the linguistic continuum through the means of verbalization. Concepts consist of the summarized and categorized patterns of the knowledge of the world. This system comprises the individual worldview, or the picture of the world that represents the comprehension of the external reality from the point of view of any given individual and his or her conceptual image that underlies their cognition of the world. In everyconcept, a person's knowledge and understanding of the world are intertwined with one another, and then the things which are recognized by the people become norms and common for all people and nation. Concepts include national knowledge, understanding of national identity in shaping the world's image. It belongs to a certain nation. It is impossible to imagine the culture of the nation without concept.
In Modern Linguistics, there are different approaches to define ‘concepts'. Since its appearance the concept has been used along with meaning and notion and linguocultural features. While many scholars agree that, it has a wider meaning and requires a closer examination than other linguistic notions. If the concept is a unit of thinking process, the meaning is defined as a unit of semantic area of language. The meaning, moreover, as a part of the concept, set in a language by symbols due to the purpose of communication [1; 7].
In revealing a nature of the concept and the conceptual theory, the concept analysis plays a great role. The authors of the «Anthology Concept» fieldwork series offer a few stages in conceptual study.
The first stage is to analyze the lexical meaning and internal form of the concept representing the concept. The second stage — the concept repositories – defining synonymic lines of lexemes. The third stage is to describe the ways in which the concept is categorized in world language image. The fourth stage – to understand the conceptualization of the lexemes in figurative meaning, to examine conceptual metaphors and metonymy. The fifth stage – to study scenarios. Scenarios are the events taking place in time and space, its subject, object, purpose, condition, setting and time [1; 15, 16].
Therefore, the diversification of the contemporary conceptions of the notion of concept is caused by the structural complexity and the multiple-aspect nature of it. The main focus of the concept researchers is to highlight three areas. Yu.S. Stepanov and V.N. Teliya are the representatives of the first direction. According to them, concept is the product of human thought, the ideal phenomenon characteristic of and pertaining to the human cognition. Concepts are acquired, reconstructed, and realized in the given linguistic continuum with the help of the expressive means and the conceptual framework of the human cognition system The representatives of the second direction are N.A. Arutyunova and her followers, T.V. Buligin, A.D. Shmelev, and others. They adhere to the notion that the concept is derived from the meaning of the word. Representatives of the third direction – E.K. Kubryakova and others strongly beleive that the concept deals with no meaning, but the meaning people put into the word as a result of the communication and with their own personal experience. V. Maslova has collected these different opinions and names the following conceptual features: 1) this is the minimal unit of human experience in its ideal representation, verbalized with the help of a word and having a field structure; 2) these are the basic units for processing, storing and transferring knowledge; 3) the concept has moving boundaries and specific functions; 4) the concept is social, its associative field determines its pragmatics; 5) this is the main cell of culture.
Yu. Stepanov shows that the concept is three layed:
- Actual or basic (active).
- Historical (passive).
- The original or etymological form (eg, the form) [2; 35].
According to the scholar, the main layer of the concept – is the one which is understandable for native speakers. For example, everyone understands the actual layer of қоңыр/qoñır (brown) concept. Қоңыр күз/Qoñır küz (yellow autumn), қоңыр тірлік/ qoñır tirlik (ordinary lifestyle), қоңыр домбыра/qoñır dombra ( a national musical instrument), etc. The yellow concept stands for feeling of a bitter annoyance, but also refer to a long period like сарғая күту/sarğaya kütw (to wait for a long time). In its broader sense, the word is the color between orange and green on the spectrum of visible light, associated with май/may (butter); сары күз/sarı küz (late autumn), сары жамбас болу/ sarı jambas bolw (a long illness); сары жілік/ sarı jilik (a middle-aged man); сары қарын (a middle-aged woman); сары сіңір/sarı siñir (elderly people), сары уайым/ sarı wayım (sorrow) and etc [3; 444, 445]. Yellow also stands for duration, distance: сар(ы) жол/ sarı jol (a long way), сары аяз/ sarı ayaz (a long frosty winter weather); шиттей жас бала/ şïttey jas bala, сары ауыз/ sarı awız, сары қарын бала/ sarı qarın bala; сары мойын бала/ sarı moyın bala (a teen, youngster); сары уайым/ sary uayym (sorrow and troubles); сары табан/ sarı taban (hardy); сары жұрт/ sarı jurt (old, ancient location, etc.
Yellow in English phraseology renders mostly negative meaning. Yellow is a symbol of uncertainty, cowardice, disease: yellow as a guinea – as yellow as lemon (color of the face); yellow streak — the one who is apt to corruption, betrayal; yellow rag – a yellow newspaper; yellow dog – a coward man, etc.
As one can see, the role of this or that color for a given ethnos is to a certain extent reflected in their linguistic consciousness. It should be noted universal in the perception of color by representatives of different ethnic groups. The researchers note the evolution of color perception on the example of brown. Thus, in the ancient Egyptians, the brown color symbolized life, since it was associated with the soil. Europeans still associate it with the feeling of their «roots», reliability and common sense. This color, together with yellow, is considered the safest color on the road. In some nations, brown color is close to black and dark, and accordingly harmonizes with the state of frustration and depression.
In the Arab-Muslim culture, it is considered very negative and was associated with decay and death. Black (dark) color in psychology in general is considered a symbol of denial and protest, it is not accidental that it was chosen by extreme liberals - from pirates to anarchists. Brown color is considered close to black in its aggressiveness, is not it because it has become «its» for the fascists: this is the color of the uniform of the Nazi storm troopers.
In Russian culture brown color is traditionally personified by poverty: until the 20th century. in the Russian language, the phraseology of the brown duck remained (brownish version of the rubbish), fixed, for example, in Ushakov's dictionary [4].
Only a certain social group can understand the second layer. As an example we can consider the following language units, language frames of the concept ‘qoñır': ‘Qoñır', a nickmane of M.Auezov, ‘Qoñır Jar' is a Magzhan's poem, etc.
The third layer is very familiar to a close group of researchers who deal with that problem, thus, this concept requires an etymological analysis. In our opinion, the origin of ‘Qoñır' dates back to ancient Turkic 'kon' (sheep). ‘Kon' and ‘qoñir' are similar in connotative meanings. ‘Kon', for example, is a symbol for modesty, moodiness, wealth. ‘Qoñır' can be interpreted in a similar way.
Meanwhile scientists differentiate meaning, nothion and concept from each other. It is known that the meaning of the word is divided into lexical and grammatical. The lexical meaning is «separating words from one another, and through which the word becomes unique. The lexical meaning is a specific meaning of every matter, phenomenon, action that is perceived by a community. It is the basis for other word- derivations» [5; 71]. And the grammatical meaning is «derived from the lexical meaning of the word». So grammatical meaning may be defined as the component of word-meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words. By grammatical meaning we designate the meaning proper to sets of word-forms common to all words of a certain class [5; 72].
However, a word meaning is narrower than a concept. Scientists believe that a word meaning is only one part of the concept. According to B. Nurdauletova: 'To split the difference between the concept and word meaning one must to make the semantic and conceptual analysis'. The concept expressed by the use of a word in a context often diverges from its lexically encoded context-independent meaning: it may be more specific or more general (or a combination of both) than the lexical meaning. The semantic interpretation of the word is closely related with a conceptual analysis, but their results are mostly different. «Once A. Irgebayeva has noted»: If the first is responsible for constructing the semantic word structure and defining the denotative, signifying, connotative meanings of the word, the conceptual analysis is concentrated on a particular linguistic characters illustrated by generalized concepts, defining the nature of the symbol in a certain cognitive structure. Conceptual analysis begins with identifying research questions and choosing a sample or samples. Once chosen, the text must be coded into manageable content categories. The process of coding is basically one of selective reduction. By reducing the text to categories consisting of a word, set of words or phrases, the researcher can focus on, and code for, specific words or patterns that are indicative of the research question. If semantic analyzes explain and interpret the word, then conceptual analysis is aimed at recognizing the world» [6; 58]. V. Maslova also mentions the complexity of the concept and the word meaning, sets the example as follows: «... у союзов и или но вряд ли можно постулировать множества, но концепты, которые за ними стоят, достаточно ясны (содинение, противопостaвление) ... (сonjunctions and or but hardly one can postulate the meaning, but the concepts that are behind them are sufficiently clear (connection, opposition) ...» [7; 37].
However, it should be noted that the lexical meaning of prepositions in English is, as a rule, relatively vague (to think of somebody, independent of somebody, some of the students). The lexical meaning of some prepositions is however comparatively distinct. However, in Kazakh language the grammatical meaning of prepositions prevail over lexical meaning. Prepositions form the field of concept. For example, кейін, шейін/ keyin, şeyin (later), the words can then be included in the concept of time. In this regard, E.Kubryakova points out «концепт не непосредственно возникает из значения слова, а является результатом столкновения значения слова с личным и народным опытом человека» (the concept comes from a collision of a word meaning with national experience of a man, it is not derived from a direct wordmeaning) For example, 'qoñır' in the dictionary is defined as 1. Dark color between black and red. 2. Ауыс/Awıs (figurative). Жұтаң/Jutañ (scarce), жадау/jadaw (exhausted). 3. Indifferent, unconditional, unfriendly. However, it does not give a full description of the word. This can be seen from a verbalassociation experiment (at the end of the full article). For example, жуас/ jwas (modest), қарапайым/qarapayım (ordinary), аласа/alasa (low/small), биік емес/bïik emes (not tall/high), құлаққа жағымды/qulaqqa jağımdı (mellifluous), Жұмекен/Jumeken and etc. Association groups can be of great help for a better understanding of a word, as well as a dictionary. Therefore, in modern linguistic researches, the meaning is being kept on the periphery and replaced by the concept.
The distinction between notion and concept is that the notion is the accumulation of things and phenomena in our real life, the concept is a system of national mentality. The concept is understood as a color by every nation. And we can not say the same thing when it comes to the concept. ‘Qoñır' is a color and it has the other meanings that are understandable only to that nation. The notion is of typical feature, and the concept is of specific feature, it is a set of knowledge about that object. Not every notion can be a concept. When the notion becomes a subject of prose-proverbs, fiction and poetry, it is widely used in a large number of phraseological units it can be ‘upgraded' to the concept.
A. Shayakhmetova notes that concepts is specified by universal and ideoethnical features [8]. If the concept of national identity is similar and common to other nationalities, then the concept turns to universal. However, we should remember that each concept is a cultural heritage, which is unique by its geography, national crafts, and lifestyle. Scientists say that there is no culture without concepts. Because people are united as a nation by the concepts.
Our current goal is to collect the language units associated with the linguistic consciousness of the people through verbal-association experiments. Show the concept of 'Qoñır' by summarizing that experiment's results. Association experiment is one of the first projective methods which is based on assumption that uncontrolled associations are symbolic or direct projection of internal content of consciousness. This property makes possible to use association experiment to discover and describe affect complexes. There are 4 types of association experiments: pair associations; serial associations; verbal differentiation; free associations. We use a free type in our experiment. «Word association experiment reflects the subject's culture and life experience. A group of words found as a result of this experiment is called an associative field. The associative field of any lexical unit is associated with the linguistic image of the world. That's why the analysis of the associative field is a way to get rich knowledge of the world outlook, psychology, lifestyle, traditions» [9; 45]. The results of this approach have been compiled into the Russian Language Associative Dictionary. The distinctive feature of this dictionary is that the authors say: «В отличие от обычных словарей – толкового, орфографического, синонимического, словообразовательного и др., которые выступают в качестве беспристрастного зеркала состояния языка, ассоциативный словарь тоже служит «зеркалом», но уже не жизни языка в целом, а ментальноэмоционального состояния его среднего носителя в определенный исторический момент его жизни, а значит, жизни общества (It differs from other dictionaries (glossary, spelling, synonymic, semantic, and word-forming and others, which serve as a reflection of the language, the associative dictionary also functions as 'a mirror' of mental and emotional state of its middleman in the defined historical period, so the life of community) [10; 4].
The Arab revolution of 2011 took place all over the country, locally known as ‘Qoñır töñkeris' (brown revolution). In our experiment, 'Qoñır' stimulus has been described as «revolution, war». That is, in the associative experiment, along with the basic meaning of the word, associations arise from different political, historical and cultural situations on the basis of that word. «The association is an enforceable phenomenon between phenomena and objects based on personal, subjective experience of a person. Its peculiarity is the instantaneous expression of personal thinking created according to human experience» [11; 15].
At the same time, the associative field reflects the cultural background and knowledge accumulated by the nation for centuries. G.Gizdatov says: «The cumulative (preserving) function of language is manifested in the vocabulary of the associative field in the system of word-realities, aphorisms, words with a national- cultural component of meaning, the introduction of which into active use gives not a depleted and truncated representation, but a complete concept (in the cultural aspect of this concept) word-concept» [12; 30].
That is, the language speakers are brought up in a certain cultural environment. Since the person is a representative of one's culture, the national-cultural structures are reflected in the word associative field. In the experiment, most of the respondents wrote the following associations with the word 'Qoñır'. For example, 15 of all respondents mentioned a music band ‘Qoñır'. When the students of the philological faculties werepolled we got different associations: The song of Magzhan ‘Қоңыр жар'/Qoñır jar, the poems of Magzhan, characters from Oralkhan's works «Darkhan», «Barhan», the nickname of Mukhtar Auezov, Atagul's ‘Джаконда жанарындағы/Djakonda janarındağı', ‘Қоңыр/ Qoñır, poem by Zhumeken. The field is dominated by the syntagmatic form of the associations (қоңыр үй/ qoñır üy (a brown house), қоңыр дала/ qoñır dala (brown steppes) and paradigmatic species (салқындық/salqındıq (aloofness), дархандық/darxandıq (generous nature), момын/momın (gentle), қарапайым/qarapayım (modest).
To compare ‘Qoñır's associative field in other nations we need to study Academician Yu.Karaulov Associative Dictionary in Russian language published: цвет 23 (color 23), дом (house), крем (cream), медведь (bear) 4, пес (a dog), пиджак (jacket), шоколад (chocolate) 3, ботинок (boots), дипломат (ambassador), земля (earth), плащ (coat), скука (dull), черный (black), чума (plague), башмак (shoe), берет (), грязный (dirty), дерево (a tree), дерьмо (сrap), загар (sunburnt), карандаш (a pencil), костюм (suit), нацист (nacist), неонацист (neonacist), плохой (bad), пол (floor), пудель (poodle), свитер (sweater), синий (blue), след (footprint), смех (laughter), теплый (warm), урод (ugly), фашизм (fascism).
According to Yu.Karaulov, in Russian people's consciousness this word is often associated with as color with negative shades (bad, ugly, laughter and etc).
In German, the brown color symbolizes the Nazi movement.
The brown color is associated with fascism in Russian people's mind. It was caused by the German pilots wearing brown shirts and going to the front. The German chief pilot, the German pilot, put on the luggage that was in the wardrobe over his subjects. In the history it was common under the name of «brown plague».
G.Gizdatov believes that the concept can be extracted entirely through an associative field. Lexicographical definitions cannot provide with the full word meaning. The most complete description of the word is in the linguistic consciousness of the community. Linguistic consciousness is a part of the national consciousness that is seen through the language, the content of the cultural concepts, the psychological features stock. The linguistic consciousness of the nation is expressed through words, phrases, collocations, proverbs and sayings. As a result of the experiment, we tried to portray the concept of ‘Qoñır' in the minds of the nation. But it does not show the fullness of the chosen concept, although it all goes to the associative field, but its conceptual field is much wider. Because the word ‘qoñır' is widely used by the Kazakh poetwriters and gets different shades. ‘Qoñır' served as a topic for a number of poems of such writers as G. Najmeden, G. Zhailybay and others.
So brown, just like red, yellow, green, blue, blue, acts as a reference word, around which a group of words denoting shades of brown are grouped: beige, bronze, brown, brown, chestnut, coffee, olive, rusty, terracotta. If brown in the Russian language realizes a negative coloration, then konyr in Kazakh is intended to characterize soft tones, warmth, kindness, charm.
Kazakhs use Konyr when they want to emphasize the special softness and pleasantness of the described. There are no beating eyes, bright colors. That is why they paint a breeze in the heat of the breeze (қоңыр жел), a soft warm night (қоңыржай кеш), a pleasant and joyful autumn (қоңыр күз). Pleasant sound of dombra or kobyz (Koshir kyi, Koshir saz), soft voice of the singer's voice (Koshyr daiys), lyrical songs (Koshir) — all this is surely painted by the Kazakhs in brown color. This color is chamberiness itself, something intimate, when a person remains alone with his innermost thoughts and desires.
But the brown color means not only the color of the night, the autumn time, the timbre of the singer, but also is used in the meanings «swarthy», «poor», «cool», «cold» (meet), «cold, cool attitude», «poor, poor».
But ‘Sarı' color is a sign of intelligence, gratitude, calmness: Cабыр түбі – сары алтын/ Sabır tübi – sarı altın (Patience is a plaster for all sores); сарғайған жетер мұратқа/ sarğayğan jeter muratqa (With time and patience the leaf of the mulberry becomes satin.), stands for comfort and hope and sorrow as well: сары уайым/ sarı wayım (sorrow); duration: сарғая күту /sarğaya kütw (to wait for a long time), in its broader meaning: сары дала/sarı dala (old location) is used [13; 1457].
In short, the concept is an idea that is applied to all objects in a group. It is the way people see and understand something. The name used to identify a concept (the concept's label) is a «term». The concept is an abstract idea representing the fundamental characteristics of what it represents. Concepts arise as abstractions or generalisations from experience or the result of a transformation of existing. The concept is a key element of culture, it is broader than meaning and notion. Not every notion can be a concept. When the notion becomes a subject of prose-proverbs, fiction and poetry, it is widely used in a large number of phraseological units it can be ‘upgraded' to the concept. We attempted to prove that by analyzing two colors ‘‘qoñır' (brown) and ‘sarı' (yellow).
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