Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - "Not just a colour"
T2 - pink as a gender and sexuality marker in visual communication
AU - Koller, Veronika
PY - 2008/11
Y1 - 2008/11
N2 - This article investigates the functions of the colour pink as a marker of gender and sexuality in cultural models and the multimodal texts they inform. To this end, tendencies suggested by a pilot survey on colour associations are traced in a number of visual texts such as leaflets, advertisements, websites and magazines, where pink functions to gender textual referents, attract female readers' attention and index both sexuality and sexual identity. Both informants' associations and the multimodal text analysis show evidence of an emergent schema that relates pink to post-feminist femininity. This is seen as complementing and extending conventional and counter-cultural associations of pink with stereotypically feminine characteristics or gayness, respectively. Ultimately, the author argues for an approach to colour that combines social semiotics with cognitive semantics.
AB - This article investigates the functions of the colour pink as a marker of gender and sexuality in cultural models and the multimodal texts they inform. To this end, tendencies suggested by a pilot survey on colour associations are traced in a number of visual texts such as leaflets, advertisements, websites and magazines, where pink functions to gender textual referents, attract female readers' attention and index both sexuality and sexual identity. Both informants' associations and the multimodal text analysis show evidence of an emergent schema that relates pink to post-feminist femininity. This is seen as complementing and extending conventional and counter-cultural associations of pink with stereotypically feminine characteristics or gayness, respectively. Ultimately, the author argues for an approach to colour that combines social semiotics with cognitive semantics.
KW - cognitive models
KW - colour association
KW - gendered discourses
KW - sexuality
KW - social semiotics
U2 - 10.1177/1470357208096209
DO - 10.1177/1470357208096209
M3 - Journal article
VL - 7
SP - 395
EP - 423
JO - Visual Communication
JF - Visual Communication
SN - 1741-3214
IS - 4
ER -