A Comparative Study on the Sense of Red in English and Chinese

英汉红色词义对比研究A Comparative Study on the Sense of Red inEnglish and ChineseAcknowledgementsThis thesis is dedicated to all the teachers who have taught me a lot, especially to my supervisor, who has helped to work out the outline, giving me enlightening advice throughout the whole process of the present thesis. To her, I owe a profound debt of gratitude.The work would not have been possible without the help of my roommates and friends, who gave me a lot of encouragement when I was at a loss. We discussed a lot and moved forward.I am particularly indebted to my father and mother, who encouraged me to persist and gave me the best they could offer.Without all the support, I could not have completed this tough work.AbstractColour terms are abundant in both English and Chinese，such as red, yellow, and blue. In this thesis, I have attempted to make a comparison between the sense of red in English and that in Chinese by studying the examples collected from all the materials available.The thesis is divided into three parts. In Chapter One, I relate colour terms with cognition and culture in English and Chinese. In Chapter Two, I list a lot of examples related to red in English and Chinese and analyse them from three aspects in terms of their sense: exact equivalence, partial equivalence, no equivalence. In Chapter Three, I find out the factors that cause these semantic similarities and differences of red from the perspective of cognition and culture.Through a comparative study of the sense of red in English and Chinese, I shed light on the three kinds of equivalent relationship of red terms in English and Chinese. The three kinds of equivalent relationship indicate that there exist similarity and difference in red terms between English and Chinese. Both similarity and difference are attributed to cognitive basis and cultural influence. If people know them well, they can achieve better cross-culture communication.Key words: the sense of red; semantic equivalence; similarity; difference; cognition;culture摘要在英语和汉语中, 存在着丰富的颜色词, 如红色，黄色，蓝色。

在这篇文章中，通过研究所获材料中的例子，我尝试着对英汉红色词义进行了对比分析。

本文分为三个部分。

在第一章中，我谈到了颜色词与认知和文化的关系。

在第二章中，我列举了中英文里有关红色词语的许多例子，并且结合三种语义对等关系对它们进行了分析：英汉语义的完全对应，部分对应和不完全对应。

在第三章中，我从认知以及文化的角度，阐释了导致这些红色词语在中英文里语义相似和不同的原因。

通过对中英文中红色词义的对比研究，我揭示出红色词语在中英文里的三种对应关系。

这三种对应关系表明在英汉两种语言里，红色词语的语义确实存在着相似性和差异性，而这些相似性和差异性都源于认知的基础和文化的影响。

关键词：红色语义；语义对应；相似；差异；认知；文化ContentsAcknowledgements (i)Abstract ..................................................................... (ii)摘要 (iii)1. Introduction (1)2. The general view of colour terms in English and Chinese (2)2.1 Colour terms with cognition in English and Chinese (2)2.2 Colour terms with culture in English and Chinese (3)3. Semantic equivalence of red in English and Chinese (5)3.1 Exact equivalence (5)3.2 Partial equivalence (6)3.3 No equivalence (8)11 4. Reasons for the semantic similarities and differences of red in English and Chinese………………………………………………….4.1 Reasons for the semantic similarities of red in English and Chinese (11)4.2 Reasons for the semantic differences of red in English and Chinese (13)4.2.1 Difference in aesthetic habit (14)4.2.2 Difference in historical background (15)5. Conclusion (17)Bibliography (18)1. IntroductionAccording to Geoffrey Leech (1981: 9), ―There are seven types of meanings: conceptual meaning, connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning, and thematic meaning.‖And he combined connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning into ―associative meaning‖. So besides the literal meaning, colour words have affluent associative meanings. Different nations endow them with different cultural connotations. The comparative study of the sense of red in both English and Chinese will be a bridge for both English and Chinese learners to understand the similarities and disparities; otherwise, these disparities can cause ambiguity and lead to misunderstanding.―Obviously, connotations are apt to vary from age to age and from society to society‖(Ibid: 12). Compared with conceptual meaning, associative meaning is unstable because associations vary considerably according to culture, historical period, and the experience of individuals. So it is quite necessary to make a comparison between associative meaning of red in English and that in Chinese.There have been a lot of studies about the meanings of different colours, the way to translate some phrases with colour terms, and the relationship between colour and culture. Many of them focus on several colours, and some focusing on one colour term only list lots of examples without comparing them in different languages, so it‘s meaningful to make a comparison between the sense of red in English and that in Chinese. If we know the similarities and differences in the sense between these two languages, we can learn the second language better, thus achieving the cross-culture communication.The thesis is about to analyze some examples of red terms in both English and Chinese, try to find the similarities and dissimilarities between them in terms of semantics, and find out the factors that cause these semantic similarities anddissimilarities from the perspective of cognition and culture.2.The general view of colour terms in English and ChineseColours are closely related to people‘s life. Colour is an important field from which people can recognize the world. Let us see the following example:(1)菩萨蛮·大柏地赤橙黄绿青蓝紫，谁持彩练当空舞？雨后复斜阳，关山阵阵苍。