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Colour in Glossolalia: “As Long as It’s Black” (In Western Culture)

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Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 827))

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss some aspects that deal with colour in Western culture. From typography to fashion and product design, black suggests, among many other things, normality, simplicity, distinction, sophistication, discretion, sadness, grief, death, renunciation, iniquity, secrecy. The word BLACK also circulates in common discourse, sometimes as a noun, sometimes as an adjective, and sometimes in idiomatic expressions. Given the vastness of contexts in which it is used and circulates, I will focus on the meanings of this colour in artefacts that form a significant part of Western material culture, as it is impossible to remove from them the symbolic force that results from their being BLACK.

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Correspondence to Leonor Ferrão .

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Ferrão, L. (2019). Colour in Glossolalia: “As Long as It’s Black” (In Western Culture). In: Bagnara, S., Tartaglia, R., Albolino, S., Alexander, T., Fujita, Y. (eds) Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018). IEA 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 827. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96059-3_24

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