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This paper explores the range of colour names, their frequency and functions, in the poetry of Stanisława Plewińska from Deszczno, Poland. The research material comprises 46 colour names w 131 text occurrences, representing 13 semantic fields, including one general field and 12 specialised ones. In her poems, Plewińska uses a diverse range of colours. Her poetry is full of all shadesof the canonical colour set. She favours colour expressions from the following semantic fields: green (30 occurrences), white (29 occurrences), and black (20 occurrences), which indicates her love for achromatic colour schemes and the colour which is imminent in nature. The analysis also shows that the poet uses: gold (15 occurrences) and blue (7 occurrences). She rarely mentions colours from the semantic field of yellow (4x), grey (4x), silver (4x), red (3x), purple (2x) or brown (1x). The poet never uses the colours from the semantic fields of orange or pink.

The article is an attempt to revise the long-established belief in the alabaster-white exterior shape of Roman antiquity, which in fact turns out to be full of colours that bring life to its image. The authors implement this intention by indicating how intensely the colour red was present in the reality described by classical Latin authors – contrary to the accusation that one of the participants of the discussion on this subject in Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights (Gell. Noc. Att. 2.26) makes of the alleged poverty regarding various shades of red in Latin terminology. The material presented contradicts the opinion expressed in Gellius’ text, and at the same time makes us realise how colourful and lively the world that emerges from the literary works of the classical Roman period was. In comparison with it, the reality witnessed by the literature of the Christian era – this parallel is what the authors of the article focus on, concluding their deliberations – in which red becomes almost exclusively a sign of shame, turns out to be ascetically sterile and depressingly colourless.

One of the most mysterious ancient magical rituals involved bringing the Moon from the sky to the earth. In its course the Moon changed its colour from white (that is "silvery") to yellow, black and red. In the article the author analyses references to the topic found in ancient sources from three perspectives: of a literary topos, philosophical idea and psychological archetype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the names of the colours used by the author of the reportages. The research method is based on finding answers to the following questions: What colours does the author write about? Which of them prevail? What do they refer to? What stylistic functions do the names of the colours fulfill? What names appear in various colour fields? What parts of speech are the colours represented by? The lexicon of colour words in the reportages under consideration is quite rich. Colours are related to people, animals, plants, landscapes and artefacts, and their function is to describe the appearance of the characters and their beauty, depict their clothing and their mental state, portray the reality of the Borderlands, mainly the landscape. Most often, they are used as epithets. The names in the colour field are not differentiated. Colours are most often represented by adjectives, less frequently by nouns, verbs, active and passive participles and adverbs. Occasionally, adjectival compounds are used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to present preliminary research results on the sight-centrism of the poetry written by Zuzanna Ginczanka. The author of the article draws attention to a paradox: it is the sight that is favoured in Ginczanka’s poems, and sight is traditionally perceived as ‘masculine’, intellectual, as opposed to ‘feminine’ senses that are more focused on touch. One of the more important features of sight-centrism in Ginczanka’s works is the observation of hues which may be found in the world. The paper investigates whether colours in this poetry change after the author of Of Centaurus moves to Warsaw. The consistency of poetic imagery placing the human being in natural landscapes rather than the urban space forces the researcher to reflect on the affiliation of Ginczanka with the Skamander group.

The descriptive grammars of Polish recognize the category of hypocoristics only in connection with denominal nouns. This research demonstrates that there are good reasons to postulate an adjectival category for hypocoristic formations with regard to derivatives such as bielutki, bielusieńki, bialutki, bieluśki, bieluteńki, bieluchny, bieleńki, bialusieńki, bialuśki, bialuteńki, bielusi. A major argument for this refers to the analysis conducted in this paper, which identifies several recurring morphemes present both in typical nominal hypocoristics and, likewise, in the derived adjectives under investigation. The article also concerns the semantic and pragmatic effects of hypocorization of Polish colour terms in the role of attributive adjectives. A study in the National Corpus of the Polish Language with the aid of the PELCRA search engine into the occurrences of such forms confirms that adjectival colour terms perform both the semantic and pragmatic functions of hypocorisms specified in dictionary as well as encyclopaedic definitions of the phenomenon. However, the hypocoristic morphemes attached to colour adjectives, and to unmarked adjectives in antonymous pairs, do not signify a diminished size, but rather signal a positive emotional attitude in the speaker and are used to intensify the description of a colour sensation, i.e., to indicate that a given colour property is recognized in its prime. The pragmatic, emotional load of such terms seems to be no different than in the case of typical, nominal hypocoristic forms; the considered colour terms generally (though not always) express positive speaker attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper is about sign perception of colors for sighted and blind people. We selected three different colours: white, red and blue. Associations are presented which are given to each of respondents in both groups. We then checked how answers corresponded with symbolic meaning of the three colors known from literary, psychological and linguistic stereotypes. We also checked if white, red and blue matter symbolize meaning in audio description, which is a technique to describe art for blind people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]