These two volumes offer a fascinating glimpse into the current avenues of research into colour. The majority of the papers originated in a 2004 conference held in Glasgow, U.K.; some additional invited papers are included. The contributions to both books represent reviews of state-of-the-art colour research in various disciplines, and some new research findings are reported.The first volume is principally linguistic and anthropological in content, and includes approaches such as Natural Semantic Metalanguage, social network analysis, quantitative analysis, type modification, vantage theory, the centrality of social norms of inference, place-names and heraldry. In the process, new insights are offered into the following languages: English, French, Portuguese, Sorbian, Burarra, Cape Breton Gaelic, Tzotzil, and others.
The second volume focuses on the development of colour perception and colour language, from infancy into adulthood, across a diverse range of cultures, including English, Himba, Chinese, and Mexican, and on the intriguing yet perplexing condition of synaesthesia, thus bridging research from the physiology, psychology and anthropology of colour.