Pragmatic Specifics of Color Designations of the Human Body in Forensic Medical Investigation

Abstract
This article is devoted to the pragmatic specifics of the color designations of the human body in the text of a forensic medical investigation. The forensic post-mortem investigation text includes data on external and internal research, special attention is paid to the designation of the color of the human body, its parts, organs, injuries and other phenomena discovered during the research, because these data can be important for determining the cause of death, time of death and resolution of other questions posed to the expert. A reliable color identification of these objects and their sufficient description in the text of the conclusion is one of the criteria for the completeness of the forensic medical examination. Texts of this type, despite their great social significance, are insufficiently studied with regard to pragmatics and rarely become objects of linguistic research. The purpose of this article is to identify pragmatic specifics of the selection of human bodies’ color designations in the text of a forensic medical investigation through their structural and semantic analysis. The main research methods are the continuous sampling method for highlighting color designations; quantitative analysis to single out the most frequent lexemes, structural and semantic analysis. Out of 20 texts of forensic medical expertise, with the help of continuous sampling we found 1173 color designations represented by 204 different lexemes. The following colors turned out to be the most frequent: темно-красный (dark red, 152), серый (gray, 79), желтоватый (yellowish, 45), сероватый (grayish, 39), белесоватый (whitish, 36), краснокоричневый and жёлтый (red-brown and yellow, 35 for each), серо-розовый (gray-pink, 31), бледно-серый (pale gray, 27), тёмный (dark, 23). These colors were most widely distributed: тёмно-красный (dark red, in 20 texts), желтоватый (yellowish, in 17 ones), белесоватый, серый and жёлтый (whitish, gray and yellow, in 16 ones), краснокоричневый (red-brown, in 15 ones), сероватый (grayish, in 14 ones), серо-розовый (gray-pink, in 12 ones), синюшный and бледный (cyanotic and pale, in 11 ones). Structural analysis showed the predominance of hue color designations over absolute ones; two- and three-component terms over single-component ones, and the widespread
use of formants that specify the color intensity. The semantic analysis showed an insignificant number of color terms that have a metaphorical meaning, as well as complete absence of “authorisms” and stylistically colored color terms. Two main pragmatic intentions were established that characterize the selection of color terms in this type of text: on the one hand, it is due to the referent and the need to convey its color as accurately as possible with the lexical means of the Russian language, and on the other, the need to use only common lexemes.

Keywords
color designation, pragmatics of color, color nomination, medical discourse, forensic medicine