颜色词在英汉语言中的文化差异

Abstract

As we all know, different culture has different languages. The language of a nation reflects abundant cultural modality of the nation, there are great cultural differences between Chinese and English with different cultural backgrounds. 

As one part of the cultural phrases, the color words have rich cultural connotation, especially in Chinese and English, Sometimes，we are confused about some English idioms when translated in Chinese, we can see a lot of examples in our daily life. Such as "black and blue" “red letter” and so on.one color may have identical symbolic meaning in different cultures but it may indicate different cultural mentality.

  

With the communication and development in every field between Chinese and English, it is necessary for us to eliminate the barriers in cross-cultural communicating and cultivating the intercultural communication awareness and the ability of English learner, this paper have compared and analyzed the associative meanings and usages of color words between Chinese and English with different specific examples, which will help us understand the different cultures and communicate with people from different world better.

Keywords　Cultural differences, Color words, Chinese culture, English culture 

Contents

Abstract I

Contents I

Introduction 1

1. Color and color words 2

2. Comparision of color words in meanings and usages in Chinese and English. 3

2.1 Color word "red" 3

2.2 Color word" white" 4

2.3 Color word “blue” 5

2.4 Color word "green" 6

2.5 Color word "yellow" 7

3. factors affecting the differences of color words. 8

3.1 Differences in History and Culture 8

3.2 Differences in Geographical and Environmental Background 8

3.3 Differences in Religious Belief 9

4. Conclusion 10

References 11