The potential of foliage colour descriptions for creating colour terms: a study of artistic and advertising discourses

The article presents the results of the research carried out on the material of texts of artistic  and advertising discourses. The study aimed to identify and describe the functionality  of foliage colour descriptions, particularly their activity and productivity in creating new colour terms, based on a reconstructed segment of the colour concept sphere within the floral space of the Russian language. This is relevant to the field of colour linguistic, which seek to create as complete a description as possible of the Russian language’s color concept sphere. To achieve this goal, several methods were used (continuous sampling, descriptive and analytical  processes, contextual, method of quantitative data processing) to address the following  objectives: 1) to determine the quantitative and qualitative composition of colour terms  significant in the perception and visualisation of foliage in the prose of Konstantin Paustovsky,  a master of the artistic prose; 2) to reveal the specificity of Paustovsky’s colour-related  writing style through the analysis of foliage colour descriptions functioning in his artistic text;  3) to identify the functional potential of foliage descriptions realised in fiction and advertising text; 4) to establish the composition and function of advertising colour terms based on colouristic descriptions of foliage. The main results of this polydiscursive research include the  identification and description of: 1) the register of colour terms used by Paustovsky to visualize foliage, of which 26 units belong to the core vocabulary, and more than 30 units expand the colour  and light range; 2) the dominant colour (yellow), reflecting K. Paustovsky’s individual perception;  3) the correlation between the Paustovsky’s colour preferences in foliage visualization and the Russian-language colour standard; 4) the set of meanings conveyed by the colour terms; 5) the stylistic diversity of colour terms; 6) the characteristics of Paustovsky’s colour-related  writing style; 7) the functionality of colour terms identified in the fiction text; 8) the mechanism by which colour terms are produced within both fiction and advertising text, based on coloristic description of foliage. The study concludes that the obtained results are significant for  describing both the individual colour picture of the world of Paustovsky, and for reconstructing  the colour concept sphere of the floral space of the Russian language. Furthermore, the  productivity of this polydiscursive study of the colour concept sphere allows for the recording and inventory of the process by which colour terms are created, and also for the explication  of the foundations for their creation and use.

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