白色在英汉语言中的文化差异及翻译

People of different countries often react differently towards the same colour as a result of their different cultural traditions and social systems. The purpose of colour words tradition is to break through language barriers, to achieve and promote cultural exchange. This paper mainly studies the cultural differences of “white” and how to deal with them in tradition, so that cross-culture communication can be improved between English and Chinese nations.

Key words:

White Cultural Connotations Culture Differences Translation

As the saying goes that each place has its own way of supporting its own inhabitants. In addition to the basic and literal meaning of the words in different cultural connotations, it has brought about many unimaginable connotations that are closely related to the cultural and national traditions.

When it comes to the most favorable colour in England, white can certainly be the one out of doubt. There are many aspects presenting people’ reference to this colour. As to the English nation, white has the meaning of purity, loveliness, innocence, and so on. In some necessary circumstances, we may have no choice but to make up a “white lie” to prevent others from being hurt by the reality. This is truly out of the speaker’ s kindness, and usually can be understood or even be grateful to. For example, a white soul means pure soul, which originates from a story in the Bible. The angel is born with a pair of white wings and a argenteous aura overflowing above her head. As a matter of fact, the word angel becomes a symbol of innocent and lovely person in literature works.

Moreover, as white symbolizes purity, it can be further recognized as fairness, justice, honesty and integrity. Let’s take “white light”for example, it is merely the meaning of a fair judgment. If an English teacher says that she will treat you white, you need not to be scared as she is to treat you fairly. Be a honest man and you will be likely to get the praise that it is very white of you. This usage can often seen in American silent films in the early time, where white hat means a man of integrity.

Since white is widely used to describe a personality of honesty and integrity, how can we understand it in economic life? To state the obvious, white can speak for fashion. As a pure and elegant colour, it has been leading a popular trend in Europe, North America and Australia. In addition to people’s crazy adoration of white, we can also use it as a derogatory term on particular occasions. Rather typically, white feather, originating from the cockfighting in the west, can modify a personality of cowardice and incompetence. Provided that a cock is born with white feather in its rump，it can be defined to be a cowardly and not aggressive enough to win. In this sense, we can manage to figure out that white elephant represents something cumbersome and to which you pays a lot but can hardly benefit from it.

Compared with its connotations in English nation, Chinese people’ affection go even farther than them. Ancient people often use white to symbolize lightness, because it shares the same colour as clouds and white jade. In the field of economy, white can also be taken as fairness and legality. For example, white income, apparent and legal, means the main source of their income that people make a living from. If a commodity sells at a obviously unreasonable price, we may have it in mind that this shop is very