中西颜色词的文化差异及翻译

中西颜色词的文化差异及翻译Cultural Differences of Chinese and English Color Words and Their TranslationAbstract:The relationship between language and culture are closely linked. Language is the base of culture and is the constituent of culture. Language as a mirror reflects the culture of a nation, and like a window shows all the contents of the culture. On the other hand, the culture is not only the basis of the language’s existence, but also the lifespring of language’s metabolism. So understanding of a culture requires the understanding of the corresponding language and vice versa. In fact, language is an abstract concept. So by what way can we observe the connotation of different culture through language? This thesis analyzes this from a set of special words----color terms. Because of different customs, environments, religious beliefs, ethnic psychology, politics and economics, the understanding and the feelings of color words are different. The same color often has different meanings in various cultures and it reflects the cultural differences. Through comparing the difference of culture between Chinese and English, we can understand different translation methods so that we can improve our English ability. Furthermore, it can promote the communication between China and western countries.This thesis consists of four chapters. The first part mainly tells about the significance, literature review and purposes of research on the cultural connotations of color terms between English and Chinese. The second part expounds the reasons of cultural differences between English and Chinese. The third part mainly talks about the ways of translating color words. At last a conclusion of the thesis is made naturally.Key Words: Color words; Cultural differences; Translation摘要:语言与文化之间的关系密不可分。

语言是文化的基础，是文化的组成部分。

它像一面镜子反映着一个民族的全部文化，又像一个窗口揭示着该文化的一切内容。

另一方面文化又是语言赖以生存的基础，是语言新陈代谢的生命源泉。

所以文化的理解是需要对相应语言的理解，反之亦然。

实际上，语言是一种抽象的概念，那我们怎样通过它来了解不同文化之间的差异呢？我们可以从一组特殊的词汇群体---颜色词来分析。

由于不同文化之间的习俗，地理环境，宗教信仰，民族心理，政治经济的不同，所以对颜色词的理解和感受也不相同。

通过比较中西方的文化差异，我们可以掌握不同的翻译方法，提高我们的英文水平,进而促进中西方的文化交流。

本文共分为四章。

第一章是对汉语和英语基本颜色词汇的研究意义，研究现状及研究目的做了阐述。

第二章是分析了产生汉语和英语基本颜色词文化内涵相同点和不同点的原因。

第三章是对汉英颜色词的翻译方法做了简介。

第四章总结全文。

关键词:颜色词；文化差异；翻译方法Table of Contents Acknowledgments (i)Abstract in English (ii)Abstract in Chinese (iii)1. Introduction (1)1.1Significance of the research (1)1.2 Literature review of the research (1)1.3 Purposes of the research (2)2. Cultural Differences of Chinese and English Color words (2)2.1Different Cultural Connotations (3)2.1.1 the color of red (3)2.1.2 the color of white (6)2.1.3 the color of yellow (8)2.2 Causes of Cultural differences (10)2.2.1 the historical causes (10)2.2.2 religious beliefs (11)2.2.3 ways of thinking (12)2.2.4 geographical environment (12)3. Translation of Chinese and English Color words (13)3.1 Literal Translation (13)3.2 Free Translation (14)3.3 Conversion Translation (15)3.4 Cultural Equivalence Translation (15)4. Conclusion (16)Bibliography (17)1. Introduction1.1Significance of the researchSince people live in a varied and graceful world, color words are closely linked with human life. In other words, life will be bleak without color words. Although there are many kinds of color, people’s perceptions of color words are the same. For example, in many languages, there are some basic color words, such as red, white, yellow, black and green, but the connotation of English and Chinese color words are quite different. Their differences in the aspects of religious belief and psychology, historical culture, ways of thinking, reflect two different cultures of Eastern and Western countries. Nowadays, with the time passing, color words have become a fundamental part in the language, which can make the language more vivid and lifelike. Meanwhile they are not only the tool of communication, but a very important component of the relationship between cultural connotations. So comparing cultural differences between English and Chinese color words and the study on their translation can make the communication more fluent and effective and make people get to know the background knowledge of English and Chinese culture more clearly so as to know more about the cultural connotation of both countries. It can also promote the English ability as well as the exchange of culture in China and West.1.2 Literature review of the researchThere are many scholars who have done some researches on the cultural differences between English and Chinese color words from different aspects. For example the teacher Gao Guilian and Li Yanqing have published the paper entitled Cultural Differences in Color Words Between English and Chinese. They mainly compare the cultural differences between English and Chinese from the reasons of the historical backgrounds, social systems, cultural conventions, religious beliefs, thinking patterns, surroundings, customs, and emotions and so on (Gao 2). From the above thesis people can understanding of the differences between English and Chinese deeply, and generalized expressions of the two languages. In 2008, there wasan essay on the issue of color word, published in the Journal of Guizhou Education Institute, namely Cultural in the Color of language by the teacher Li Wei. He mainly made a study of the emotions and rhetorical roles of the information of cultural carried in the terms concerning colors. Meanwhile he suggested teachers should lead students to accumulate and compare culture differences when learning western cultures (Li 11). Another teacher Huang Zhengji has published the paper entitled Chinese and Korean Color Words and Their Cultural Connotations Cultural in the Journal of Dongjiang Journal. He expresses the difference of color words in Chinese and Korean from five basic colors: green, red, white, yellow and black (Huang 64).1.3 Purposes of the researchThrough the analysis and comparison of the cultural differences of Chinese and English color words, people can get the following conclusions: The color words have a plentiful connotation both in English and Chinese. As a necessary part of the language, color terms can reveal a nation’s culture. It can provide a typical example for the communication in Chinese and English daily life. Meanwhile it can strengthen the English learner’s sensibility to western culture to lessen and avoid pragmatic failure in cross-culture communication, and then enhance the abilities of cross-cultural communication. English learners can use English correctly and promote translation skills by knowing the differences between color word in both Chinese and English. So later in life, much more attention should be spent on deeper connotations of color words, for better understanding and memorizing.2. Cultural Differences of Chinese and English Color wordsThe cultural differences of English and Chinese can be reflected by the color words, from the aspects like value, expression way, emotional coloring to category used. While in the following thesis, the main reasons leading to their cultural differences such as: the different cultural tradition, national customs, geographical environment, religious belief and historical culture and geographical backgrounds,these aspects will be told in detail.2.1 Different Cultural Connotations2.1.1 The Color of RedChina is a country which advocates red, despises black and hates white. Red is a favorite color of Chinese people. Since ancient times, red is advocated by Chinese, and pays an important role of essential festival color in our daily life. In Chinese people’s mind, red is the basic color which people respected and is an carrier of Chinese people’s spirit and object. So red has the following meaning in Chinese: Firstly, red symbolizes happiness, hotness, prosperity and passion. In happy days people would surely use it to decorate everything. It represents not only the festival atmosphere of rejoicing and festivity, but also the lucky. For example, Chinese New Year is one of the most important traditional festivals in China. Many people will wear the red clothes during this time of year. Meanwhile at that time, every household will have many red ornaments traditionally such as windows, which will stick with red paper-cuts and doors, which will be pasted by red-paper couplets with popular themes of happiness and wealth. The night will end by family lighting the red firecrackers. Early the next morning children will meet their elder members and receive money in red paper envelopes with the meaning of wishing children healthy and happy in the next year. Another example, when the young people hold the wedding, the new couple should wear red clothes, and the floor will be paved by red carpet according to Chinese tradition. So people can see from the above examples, in Chinese culture red stands of happiness and joy.Secondly, red symbolizes good luck and success: When a new store or shop was open, the relatives and friends always express their best wishes like “开门红”for the master. Here “开门红”means the store will make a good begining, and become flourishing and present business boom. Over time, people usually call the popular star as “当红明星” in modern society. In Chinese “当红明星”is mainly used to describe those stars that are popular and favored with their bosses, supported and loved by the audience.Thirdly, red has the meaning of revolution: In Chinese, red is the most typical word which is related to the political color. The period of Chinese Anti-Japanese war,Chiang Kai-shek and his colleagues abused the army of the communist as “Red Army”. China’s political life had used that “Red government”, “Red Star”, “The Five star Red Flag” to symbolize Chinese politics.The fourth, red also refers to the female: In ancient time, the person, a critical figure to help the successful relationship with other’s marriage, was called “红娘”. She mainly brings the bachelors and single female together. And the feature of “红娘” has deeply rooted in the people’s heart like: cute, pranks, beautiful. So the person who helps the other’s marriage is self-proclaimed as“红娘”.For extraordinary time, red can stands of uprightness and loyalty: In Chinese traditional opera, Guan Yu has a big red face. He impressed us with his stiffness, straightforwardness and loyalty. He would rather suffer death than surrender to Sun Quan. Since then the red stands for uprightness and loyalty.On the other hand, in the English culture, red is often used in a derogatory sense indicating anger, brutality, disaster, trivial formalities, fanaticism etc. In the Oxford English Dictionary we find the following definitions: a primary color or anything colored red：a red clothe, red clothing etc (Sally 1663).In western culture, red is the color of violence, danger, a symbol of blood (Jia 125).Because in English, red is the blood of people’s heart, and the western people think that blood is the source of people’s life, which is vital for life. If people have no blood, they would surely die, so red is always connected with violence and danger. In western culture, the connotation of red comes from the bullfight. During bullfighting, the cow will go crazy and run wildly when it saw the red cloth. So red makes people feel unsafe.Red can stand for danger and urgency. In western country they have the word “red light, red flag” to show the condition is dangerous. For example, China issued red alert Sunday, the highest possible warning for forest fires. Here the “red alert” means the emergency alarm, it’s usually to describe emergency conditions and attract people’s attention. Or say “John told me a red adventure story”, in this sentence “red” means the feel of dangerous, suspenseful and nervous.Red is a symbol of dissolute and obscene: People always call the place of salacious as “red-light district”. And the women who were working in the field of obscene were named as “red lady”. In Hawthorne’s famous work The Scarlet Letter, it described the prostitute’ breast of her gown appearing the letter A in red. Meanwhile astudy shows red is related to sex.The color red represents being cheap. For example, in western country you cannot interprete “red eye” as the eye with the color of red, but refer to a cheap wine of whisky. There is “Dago red” to signify the poor quality of red wine.From the above analysis, we have known the color of red symbolizes a lot of positive meanings, which are populated by Chinese people. While in western country, red has a negative meaning. All of these showed the cultural differences of red color between English and Chinese.Red has the same connotations between English and Chinese culture. For example: In china, every family hangs red lanterns for celebrating spring festival. Similarly, on Christmas Day in western country, the Father Christmas with a red hat and a long red robe gives children gift. From the above example, you can know red is an expression indicating people take delights or get excited of these festivals. So both English and Chinese, red is usually associated with happy occasions and celebrating activities.No matter in China or western countries, red is used in a number of specific occasions to show importance. For example, when some prime ministers come to visit China, we should roll out the red carpet for them. Here we use red to show our warm welcome and attention to them. At the Academy Awards they also put a red carpet to show its importance. In daily life, people usually name the meaningful and important days as “red letter day”.As we all known, people use red to express the person is healthy and has a good complexion. In china, people often use “红光满面” to show somebody has a ruddy complexion and brilliant faces. It’s the same with English, so they have the words: “as red as a cherry” or “as red as a rose” to express healthy. This is because the color of the cherry and the rose color are actually quite close to human’s healthy complexion.Red is also a color to show emotion of “shy and angry” and so on. In Chinese, people often use “someone’s face color is as red as apple” to describe one’s shyness. There are words “red-faced, red with angry”to show the same meaning in English.Red also means “danger and warning” in two counties. Both English and Chinese, people use the red number to show deficit in economy. Because red is a bright color both in English and Chinese used to indicate danger especially in the transportation, such as: The car had to stop at a red light. A person usually uses the“Red-light district” to warn people not to go there.2.1.2 The Color of WhiteIn Chinese culture, white is the opposition color of red. It’s a taboo word and it reflects the Chinese people’s rejection and disgusting, both in material and spiritual. And white color is a symbol of death so that white is usually associated with the performance of exhausted and lifeless. The meaning of the white color is as following:Firstly, in Chinese the white symbolizes death and mourning. For example: In Chinese the word “红白喜事” can translate as wedding and funeral in English. So the white means funeral here. When someone dies, people call the funeral as“白事”. The color of the clothes that dressed on the main relatives and friends is white, the door should be pasted elegiac couplet, and the mourning hall was adorned with stateliness and solemnizes, during funeral procession people hold the white complications.Secondly, white can symbolize the person with the shallow knowledge and born of humble parentage. In ancient China, white was the color of civilians, people used “白丁” to express the common man without knowledge or an inexperienced youth. Also people use “白屋” to refer to thatched house indicating the family was poor and didn’t have any money. There was “白身” to insinuate the common people who had no official position or fame.Thirdly, white also means evil and bad people. In the traditional opera, the white face is the representative traitor minister that their face are painted with white when appearing on the stage, the typical person is Cao Cao. He was so suspicions that he distrusts others. Meanwhile he was pursuing his own personal benefits at the cost of others.Last, white also means “innocence”. People use “清白无辜” to express someone is innocent and he or she isn’t evil. There is the same word “不白之冤”. When someone was sent to prison for not breaking the law, he would tell the judge he is innocent, as the same meaning in Chinese “清白无辜”.Sometimes the meaning of white in English is very different from Chinese. In western culture, white is their favorite color because Westerners think white color represents elegance and purity and beautiful. There are the example as following: InWestern weddings, brides always wear white wedding dresses and a long white veil, with the white flowers in their hands symbolizing rarity and purity of love; The image of angels in people’s hearts is like that they dress in white with white wings and white halo over their head. Here is another example that white Lilies symbolize purity, elegance, honor, wealth and the sacred. Because of its elegance and purity, they are the national flowers in both France and Vatican, and the symbol of Virgin Mary in Catholicism. From the above discussion, it is evident that white is the favorite color in western countries.White is a symbol of honest and integrity in western culture. There are many words to show this such as: “a white spirit, white man and white hand”. For example: A man with culture and taste can be called “white men”. When you meet an official who doesn’t accept bribes, and he is totally honest, a white hand man.White symbolizes good luck in English. People usually want to memorize some especially important or happy day in their life. In other word that day is “one of the white days in their life” or “white days of their life”. Here white is interpreted as lucky and happiness.White has the meaning of lawful and non-harmful. Such as: In western country the documents released by official will be called “white paper”. They are used to call the legal market as “white market”. Sometimes the truth need to be told as much as possible, but there is any harm in telling a white lie when the situation needs. White in that sentence means no harmful and malicious. This shows that white is a favorable color in western culture (Berlin 93).From the above discussion, we have learned that in western countries the color of white has the positive meaning such as: “lucky, honest, pure” and so on. On contrary in western country, white has the meaning of “death, evil, innocence” in China.Although there are many differences between English and Chinese culture, but to most Chinese and Westerners, the color white usually has the same meanings.Generally, white stands of purity, honesty and innocence . The bride will wear a white dress in the wedding. Meanwhile with the development of the society, this custom has gradually become popular in China. In daily life, people often connect white with the white snow, cloud and the lily, and they think that white is innocent and pure. Gradually, lily is a symbol of purity of marriage which is accepted by Chinese.Then white can symbolize something is no value or in vain. For example: In Chinese, there are some phrases with the word white to express this meaning such as: “白费力气，白费事, 白干”. It’s the same with English as they have the phrases such as “white elephant” to imply useless things in English-speaking countries.2.1.3 The Color of YellowAccording to Chinese traditional culture, yellow is a symbol of sacredness, nobleness and majesty. It has a long time that yellow is considered to be the most popular color in Chinese culture. Chinese Dragon totem is the most popular in the Chinese nation. It is said that the dragon had been enshrined as a holiness thing which was covered with golden scale. So from ancient China until now people had been advocating the color of yellow.In china, the yellow color represents honor and glory. First the yellow river is regarded as china’s mother river in China and the cradle of Chinese civilization. Meanwhile the color of the earth is yellow and earth is the condition of everything to be grown, so yellow is very cherished in China. It’s a typical color of Chinese nation. Chinese people’s yellow skin and black eyes have made a deep impression to world people. So to yellow color, Chinese people have a kind of special feeling.In Chinese culture, yellow means young people. It mainly comes from people’s feeling of little grass and trees. People usually call a silly little girl as “黄毛丫头” in china. Those women who haven’t married and still are virgins can be called “黄花闺女”.In Chinese “flower language”, yellow flowers and fruits all endow a good moral. Chrysanthemum always endows “awe-inspiring, good friends, hermit in flowers, prolonged life guest”. Mei flower always endows “persistence of love, honest, the chief of flower.” The Lamei is always regarded as “devoted love, keeping is not rejected.” The Finger Citron Flower’s homophonic meaning is longevity and so on. All suggested that the Chinese people have a special emotion and favor for yellow.Meanwhile yellow is used to represent a person is unhealthy. Chinese person always use “面黄肌瘦” to describe somebody with an unhealthy yellowish hue of their complexion so that he looked sick and bad. Besides there are a lot of diseases are associated with yellow such as: “yellow blight，yellow dwarf，yellow fever” and so on.In contrast, yellow in English culture, to some extent, is kind of annoying, and usually indicates coward, jealousy, suspicion and craven.Yellow means “betray and evil” in western culture. According to the record in Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (《布留沃成语与寓言词》): In Spanish, those who believe the cult or collaborated with the army during the war were punished with yellow clothes. In France, the traitor’s house should paint yellow to show punishment (Ivor 189).Yellow means timorousness, the following are examples: In western countries people usually use “yellow belly or yellow dog” (Sally 98) to describe the timid people. There are a lot of words related with yellow to show the behavior of timid such as: “turn yellow, have a yellow streak, yellow around the gills” and so on.Yellow is a sign of some special things. In America people use “yellow” to represent “taxi”, “Yellow pages” represent the telephone book, “Yellow book” represent the government reports of France.Yellow can symbolize the strong feeling for missing friends and relatives. It’s a positive meaning of Eastern culture. We have learned an essay Going Home written by Pete Hamill. It tells about a tree was covered with yellow ribbons to show a wife welcomes her husband to go home. Yellow Ribbon is a sign of loyalty to family, friends or loved ones who are welcomed home. Customarily it is used to welcome men and women who have been away for a long time under adverse or particularly difficult circumstances such as war or prison home.By contrast, the color of yellow stands for sacredness, nobleness and majesty in people’ heart. But for westerners, yellow has many derogatory senses. All of these were reflected the differences connotation of yellow color between two nations.While in modern times, both in English and Chinese, the color of yellow has some negative meanings, for example: the color of yellow is related with “sex, filthy, obscene, or vulgar,” especially means pornography, as times goes on. In china people names the books or film which includes pornographic contents as “黄色书刊, 黄色电影” (Deng 122-158). While in western countries they used “obscene books, pornographic movie or blue film (Sally 83) to show the same meaning.Firstly, yellow is a sign of yellow press. In Eastern culture, yellow is commonly used to represent the vulgar taste of newspaper or magazine or the book with no literature value. That reference may be traced up to American’s Le Monde in history,which used to print vulgar paintings in yellow in order to attract readers’ attention. Thus, people call this publication as “yellow press”.Secondly, yellow is a sign of wealth. Because yellow is the color of gold, it’s a cherished metal, which was used as money. In ancient times, people used gold to make trades. In China daughters are traditionally given golden ornaments and luxury for their marriage. Also because of this, people like to wear golden ornaments to show wealth both in eastern and western countries.Third, yellow is used to represent failure both in English and Chinese. In china, there is a phrase “黄粱美梦” to mean the thoughts can’t come true. When the couples broke up you can say “黄了”.Last, yellow is a symbol of power both in Chinese and western culture. In the history of china, yellow is considered as a noble color, because our ancestor lived on the Loess Plateau and the Culture of Huaxia originated from the loess plateau. The Book of Poetry said “the color yellow stands for the emperor”. After the Sui and Tang Dynasties(581-907), only the emperor of China can wear a yellow robe. So there is a phrases “黄袍加身” to suggest the man is the emperor and the common person can not use the yellow color. Meanwhile Emperor’s imperial edicts also write in the cloth of yellow (Du 72-78). And the monk of Daoism praised highly Huanglao doctrine in Eastern Han Dynasty，their priest frock’s color is yellow. While in western country, yellow is also a status symbol. Because yellow is the color of imperial’s crown which is made of gold.2.2 Causes of Cultural differencesThe paper has studied the difference of culture connotations of color words in English and Chinese. So the following part will explain the reasons of differences. Due to the reasons of different cultural tradition, national customs, geographical environment, religious belief and historical and geographical backgrounds, so the same word may have different meanings in different nations. People lived in the colorful word, so the feeling of color words is inevitably affected by the national cultural traditions. All kinds of color don’t have the same cultural connotation.2.2.1 The Historical CausesThe main cause of cultural differences of color words is the different historicalculture in Chinese and English. Every country has their historical culture, and China was influenced by feudalism ideology. From ancient time, red is the respectful color. In ancient time, when our ancestors doing sacrifice they have great admire for the sunlight. From then on, red stands for festive and auspicious. So in some important festivals, you can see the color of red everywhere such as: red firecrackers, red couplets, red lanterns and so on. When the companies cut the ribbon they also use red cloth.While the humanism was the main idea of the western countries, they admire for freedom, peace and individuality and dislike war and violence. So in western countries, the color of red is often related to “war and blooding”. And American people usually call the fire as red ruin and the pepper as “red hot”. All of these show western people’s offensive of red.2.2.2 Religious beliefsIn western country, Christianity’s influences are very great. Christianity had a very big impact on Western civilization. Christian classic is “Bible”, which is accounts of God’s revelation and Christian general principles of faith and is the eternal truth. It’s legend that Judas gives away Jesus for thirty pieces of silver in The Bible. And Judah always wears yellow clothes, so yellow means betray and evil in English. Westerners dislike the number 13, because in the Christian legend, at the last supper Jesus sat down with his disciples.Meanwhile in Western country Friday is always called as “Black Friday”, meaning unfortunate.Because the Christian churches believe Jesus Christ died on the Cross on Friday. Christians read the Bible and go to churches on Sunday. On the same day, Adam and Eve were being driven out of the Eden. All of these are due to Christian churches regarding “Friday” as “unfortunate”.On the other hand, China is a country which advocates yellow. Yellow is one of the basic colors which Chinese people respected. In Chinese traditional culture, yellow is an advocated color of religious. In primitive religion, Chinese Dragon totem is the most popular in the Chinese nation. It is said that the dragon had been enshrined as a holiness thing which was covered with golden scale. Buddhism is one of the three great religions in china and its basic color is yellow. In the Buddhism, the color of clothes of monks is yellow. So people advocated the color of yellow from ancient time until now.。