and the structure of the semantic field of the colour and to make final reconstruction.associative experiment took place in 2004-2009 in Russia, Europe, the USA and some other countries with a help of the sources of the e-mail and different social networks. The test group was asked to name their verbal associations with the particular colours: red, blue and green.exposed the results to the procedure of content-analysis and semantic grouping. According to the research several conclusions were made:
. Blue and green colours were closely connected with the associations of the objects and phenomena of wild life and inanimate nature;
. Red colour has many associations with emotions in all cultures. This can be explained by the fact that red colour is traditionally connected with the terms of love, passion, anger and so on.is interesting to notice that the blue colour has got high percent of emotional associations in the English language. This can be explained by the fact that the semantic field of blue colour in English culture contains the terms of sadness and grief. So the semantics of blue colour in English culture is mainly negative.
1.1 The results of the associative experiment
ColourTotal Associations with the objects and phenomena of wild life and inanimate natureAssociations with the cultural objectsAssociations with abstract termsAssociations with the emotional termsRussian culture, N=145, total 2849 red 496209 (42.1) 177 (35.7) 43 (8.7) 64 (12.9) green 459279 (60.8) 88 (19.2) 69 (15.0) 20 (4.4) blue481 276 (57.4) 111 (23.1) 85 (17.7) 8 (1.7) English culture, N=110, total 2218 red 387176 (45.5) 112 (28.9) 45 (11.6) 52 (13.4) green 366233 (63.7) 59 (16.1) 48 (13.1) 25 (6.8) blue 366240 (65.6) 65 (17.8) 41 ( 11.2) 19 (5.2) Mixed European culture (answers in English), N=65, total 1303 red 226 93 (41.6) 33 (14.6) 40 (17.7) 58 (25.7) green214 122 (57.0) 30 (14.0) 39 ( 18.2) 19 (8.9) blue213 127 (59.6) 28 (13.2) 52 (24.4) 5 (2.4) highest percent of the answers in the regarded groups took the meanings of the so-called «prototypical referents» of the colour, as they are the names of the objects and phenomenon of the wild life and inanimate nature that surrounded a man since the very beginning of his cultural and historical development. So they are the nuclear of the semantic field of the colour. Some meanings with low percent but pointing to the prototypical referents of the colour can be also included to the nuclear of the semantic field of colour, that means that objects and phenomena of the nature which are closely connected with the person s consciousness speaking this or that language and which are defined by the climate, nature, geographical position of the country.
Picture 1.1 The nuclear meanings of the semantic field of the red colour
1.2 The nuclear meanings of the semantic field of the blue colour
to the results of the first stage of the research the hypothesis was made: the nucleuses of the semantic field of the same colour in different cultures usually contain similar meanings presented by the prototypical referents of the colour (thus there can be little differences because of the difference in geographical position and climate). The peripherical meanings can be marked as culturally-specific, appeared in the nation ...
