Gender Semantics in Color Nominations of Consumer Goods in French

Abstract

The article examines the color values of the French language through the prism of gender issues and the processes taking place in the modern French society. The gender semantics of color designations is studied from the point of view of biological and socio-cultural characteristics of men and women, as well as taking into account marketing communications aimed at creating “male” and “female” color names for consumer goods. Cultural and social changes are reflected in the color category, in particular, in the gender semantics of the color of everyday goods. The article analyzes the color nominations of cosmetics and cars from the point of view of gender stereotypes that are introduced into the minds of consumers according to sociocultural norms that determine the psychological qualities, behaviors and activities of a person. Marketers and designers use gender differences when nominating a new color shade of a product in order to maximize its compliance with the value priorities of the consumer, which are changing in the context of globalization and reducing the differentiation of the social roles of men and women. In order to interpret the gender semantics of color values, the article presents the results of a free associative psycholinguistic experiment, during which the presence of values was recorded, both coinciding in the representation of men and women, and demonstrating the features of associative fields in conceptual pictures of the world.

References

1. Vorobyeva E.Yu. 2017. Natsionalnaya spetsifika v razvitii tsvetovoy semantiki (na primere frantsuzskogo yazyka) [National specificity in the development of color semantics (by the example of French language)]. Moscow State University Bulletin. Series 19: Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, no. 2, pp. 93–99. (In Russ.)

2. Zagryazkina T.Yu. 2015. Variantologiya kak napravleniye v izuchenii yazykov, kultur i regionov [Variantology in learning of languages, cultures and regions]. Moscow State University Bulletin. Series 19: Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, no. 3, pp. 22–48. (In Russ.)

3. Kirilina A.V. 2019. Osnovnyye tendentsii konstruirovaniya gendera v sovremennoy Rossii [The main trends in the construction of gender in modern Russia]. In Gender: yazyk. kultura. kommunikatsiya (coll. of issues). Moscow, pp. 33–37. (In Russ.)

4. Ksenzenko O.A. 2013. Lingvisticheskiye aspekty izucheniya i otsenki kreativnosti v reklamnoy kommunikatsii [The linguistic aspects of the study and evaluation of creativity in advertising communication]. Moscow State University Bulletin. Series 19: Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, no. 4, pp. 101–109. (In Russ.)

5. Lyusher M. 1995. Signaly lichnosti: rolevyye igry i ikh motivy [Personality signals: role-playing games and their motives]. Voronezh, NPO Modek. (In Russ.)

6. Sternin I.A. 2019. Eksperimentalnyye issledovaniya gendernoy semantiki slova [Experimental studies of the gender semantics of the word]. In Gender: yazyk. kultura. Kommunikatsiya (coll. of issues). Moscow, pp. 27–29. (In Russ.)

7. Tannen D. 2003. Gender and Family Interaction. The Handbook on Language and Gender. UK, Basil Blackwell.