英汉基本颜色词中文化内涵的对比研究

商丘学院

毕业论文

（ 2011届本科）

题目：英汉基本颜色词中文化内涵的对比研究学院：外国语学院

专业：英语

作者姓名：

指导教师：职称：

完成日期： 2014 年 12 月 25 日

二○一四年十二月

1

外国语学院毕业论文开题报告

3

5

Contents

Abstract（English） (8)

Abstract（Chinese） (9)

1. Introduction (10)

2．Cultural Connotation Differences between English and Chinese Color Words (10)

2.1 The Sense of the Basic Colors in Chinese (11)

2.2 The Sense of the Basic Colors in English (15)

3. Causes of the Differences in the Cultural Connotation between English and Chinese Color Words (18)

3.1 Differences in History and Culture (18)

3.2 Differences in Geographical and Environmental Background (19)

3.3 Differences in Religious Belief (19)

4. Conclusion (20)

References (21)

Acknowledgment (22)

7

Abstract

Culture has distinctive features of the national character, is a unique creation of different ethnic groups in the specific environment, history, geography, religion and customs. Due to the impact of these factors, color terms have connotative meanings as well as conceptual meanings. Color term, a special kind of Culture-bound words, is the important reflection of different cultural connotation. One color may have identical symbolic meaning in different cultures but it may indicate different cultural mentality resulting in different association of ideas, therefore they have different cultural connotations. With the communication and development in every field between China and west countries (English-spoken countries), it is necessary for us to learn that. The article compares the different cultural connotation between Chinese and English and analyzes the reasons, which help us understand different cultures between China and west countries, and communicate with people from different cultural background.

Key words: color term, culture, difference

摘要

文化具有明显的名族特色，是不同人群在不同的地理环境，宗教信仰和历史习俗的独特产物，由于受到这些原因的影响，颜色词不仅具有自身的概念意义，还具有不同的内涵意义。颜色词作为一种特殊的文化限定词，是反映不同文化内涵的一面重要的镜子。在不同的民族文化中，同一种颜色可以有相同的象征意义，同时也可以表达不同的文化心理，引起不同的联想，具有不同的文化内涵。随着中国与西方国家在各个领域中交流和发展，准确理解其文化势在必行。本文通过分析对比英汉基本颜色词的文化内涵,并剖析其产生差异的原因，让大家更深入地了解英美民族与汉民族文化，从而帮助来自不同文化背景的人们更好进行地沟通交流。

关键字：颜色词；文化；差异

9

1. Introduction

Language is the carrier and products of culture, its connotation reflect the different cultural characteristics. Culture is the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving (Samovar et al 1995). Culture is total accumulation of beliefs, customs, values, behaviors, institutions, and communication patterns that are shared, learned and pass down through the generation in an identifiable group of people. This is probably the most widely accepted definition of culture (Linell Davis 2004). Culture has distinctive features of the national character, is a unique creation of different ethnic groups in the specific environment, history, geography, religion, customs. Due to the impact of these factors, the vocabulary is given a different pragmatic significance, known as the cultural connotation. Color term is an important component of vocabulary. Like other words, color terms have connotative meanings as well as conceptual meanings.

In Chinese and English languages, the words and phrases of different colors are very abundant. According to the general study of Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, there are totally ten basic color terms in English, which contain white, black, red, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, gray and orange. However, in Chinese, the basic color terms just include white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, purple, brown and gray. Though it seems that there are fewer Chinese basic color than English, in fact, Chinese is also one of the richest and most colorful languages in the world. Color words can be used either literally or metaphorically to convey their meanings, so it is also an important problem of the research of language and culture, and worthy to be studied thoroughly. 2．Cultural Connotation Differences between English and Chinese Color Words

Due to the respective cultural background and tradition, some phrases containing color words have far surpassed their original meanings, forming different connotations in cultures. The difference of the connotation of the color between