Time conceptualisation: A case study of the colourful future

Abstract

The following article discusses the phenomenon of time with reference to the colour domain. As it has been proved by a number of studies mentioned in the text, the phenomenon of time has been widely analysed from numerous perspectives; yet, the cognitive one is the most prominent and the most significant one for this work. As follows, the key idea for the discussion presented below is centred around the contribution of the colour domain as far as the conceptualisation of time is concerned. In order to prove the role of the colour domain for time conceptualisation, the analysis presented in the article is based on the concept of the future reference, which is exemplified by a comparative study between English and Polish corpus data. The major conclusion from the analysis is that although the colours used for conceptualisation of the future reference are rather limited in their representation, they are still responsible for modifying the qualitative grounds of timenamely they are responsible for introducing axiological aspects of time.