Lee [Atlas] Dwyer | 2025 I.S. Symposium

Name: Lee [Atlas] Dwyer
Title: Geoclimatological impacts on linguistic terminology and evolution: A case study on Arabic color terminology
Major: Environmental Geoscience
Advisor: Meagen Pollock

Scientists in the last century have made great strides in linguistic research, particularly in the field of ecolinguistics. This novel area of research examines the environmental, climatological, and geological mechanisms of influence on linguistic behavior. The synthesis and evolution of color terminology in language lies at the nexus of biological, anthropological, environmental, and climatological factors that coalesce to create hues that humans have identified in various ways to describe the world around them. In the Arabic language, colors are generally classified into eleven basic categories. Some of these categories are borrowed or inferred from nearby languages or adopted artificially, but others developed as a result of anthropological effort to describe environmental phenomena for the sake of survival. This study examines the variegated elements contributing to the general development of lexical color terms in Arabic and isolates the environmental factors that have been empirically found to have a concentrated effect on Arabic’s linguistic function.

Posted in Symposium 2025 on May 1, 2025.