DifferenceofColorWordsinChinese-EnglishTranslaion_开题报告

  Does language shape culture or does culture shape language? In my opinion, language is a mirror, precisely reflecting the connotation of culture. Language is an important tool for human beings to communicate with each others. At the same time it is an important and outstanding component of culture and imposes great impact on culture. However, culture is imparted and transmitted by language. There wouldn’t exist culture without language. “Language and culture are mutually in existence…”(Engene Nida, 1993).

   Culture is the environment that people live in, by which every aspect of people’s life is affected and changes with the culture varying. As people live in the world with abundant color, to which their feelings are inevitably influenced by their native cultural tradition. The value of color is an organic component of the cultural value. According to the research of linguists and anthropologists, the classification of different national language is always different, because it has close relation to the ecological and the cultural environment of every nation. The color words, which have become a particular field in language study, are the product of the specific environment of language and culture. They not only reflect the physical characteristic, but the characteristic of society and times, having rich cultural connotation and becoming an important subject in the study of language and culture. 

   At the end of 1960s, two American scholars – the nationalist Brent Berlin and the linguist Paul Kay cooperated with each other, and published the most influenced work in the research of the color words Basic color words: Research of University and Envolutionism(1969). The work was published after studying nearly a hundred languages. Berlin and Kay originally created the theory of basic color words.

Chinese scholars, Yao Xiaoping and Liu Danqing, have done deep research on the color words in Chinese. They took the cultural factors into consideration in the research of the developing process of the color words. They thought that the cultural factors would have effect on the existence and development of the basic color words, about which Berlin and Kay didn’t concern. In recent years, many researchers also have taken part in the comparative research of the color words in Chinese and English, such as Meng Jianghong (2001), who studied different endowed meaning of the color words in Chinese and English culture, and pointed out the important meaning in practical usages, and Liu Xiaohui(2001), who expounded five basic skills of how to translate the color words correctly in Chinese and English, etc. 

Based on the research situation of the color words at home and abroad, tough many scholars have done comparative study of the color words in Chinese and English, in my opinion, they are not systmatical and clear enough. And come color words that have apperared in recent years have not been referred to. Therefore, to understand and apply the color words correctly, in my paper, I’d like to briefly introduce color and color words in the first place, and then by giving examples, make comparative study on the different associative meanings and usages of color words in both languages. At last, the factors affecting the differences of color words between Chinese and English will be analyzed in order to get better understanding of the color words and the cultural differences between Chinese and English, in the hope of helping English learners overcome the barriers in communicating and promote the ability of cross-cultural communication. 

With the social development of China and English spoken countries, people’s communication with each other has become more and more important. The communication of human beings is not only a kind of phenomenon of language, also a phenomenon of cross-culture. Cross-cultural communication refers to the communication of people in different cultural background. It becomes possible just because human beings share some common cultural information. However, people cannot share much other information because of cultural differences. 

Therefore, in the course of learning English, it is necessary to pay attention to the cultural differences of color words between Chinese and English so that we can communicate with others effectively and successfully, as the research on the dultural differences of the color words between Chinese and English has profound significance in cross-cultural communication. 

Key words: color words; cultural; translation

Outline

Introduction 

Color and Color Words

2.1 Basic Color Words 

Definition of Basic Color Words 

English Basic Color Words

Chinese Basic Color Words

Difference of Basic Color Words in Meaning and Usages in Chinese and English 

 3.1 Difference in Associative Meanings

 3.2 Difference in Language usages 

4. Factors Affecting the Differences of Color Words in Chinese and English

 4.1 Cultural Tradition and Customs

 4.2 Historical Background

 4.3 Religious Belief

6. Conclusion 

7. Reference

8. Acknowledgements

  References

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