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1.Introduction

Language is a carrier of culture. Color terms are a part of cultural words; it is a part of language. Therefore, color terms are the carrier of culture. It cords human beings‟history, traditional custom and social change, Thus, color term plays an indispensable role in people‟s life. Human beings have the same things at the beginning of human beings‟history. Chinese people and English people‟s ancestors have the same experiences. The word surrounded by blue sky, green trees, white clouds gives people the same scene. Through a long period, Chinese and English has different history and culture. It is decided upon the color terms‟ implication, which are different. In other words, the studies the symbol meaning of the same color term in different culture are different. The symbol meanings of the same color term are different in different periods in one country. China is a part of the world, globalization promotes China‟s development. It shows on several aspects. One aspect is cultural communication, Chinese people aspect is to accept western culture, and transform the Chinese culture. It includes the development of tricolor terms. It is important for people to understand and use color terms in cross-culture communication. Color terms have some culturally bound features to show people‟s feelings, attitudes, opinions and thoughts. Color terms also have some practical communicative implication.

1.1 The present study of the color terms

The step in the study of color terms displays the human civilization. In the 17th century, people had begin studying the color and the color term in natural science. In the 18th century, it gave rise to the aesthetic study of color terms. In 19th century, it is foundation for contrasting and comparing color terms from a cross-cultural perspective. From last century until now, the study of color terms develops in many subjects, for examples neurology, biogenetics, cognitive science and cognitive psychology. People found the complicated relationship in the color terms‟ system.

In ancient China, Chinese people who studied colors produced many color terms. In theory of “yin yang” and “five Elements” introduced the five main color terms in society. From the May 4th Movement of 1919.more and more Chinese scholars have studied on color terms.In1964, Zhang Peiji published the book -English Words and Sound and Their Translation, making detailed description of the usage of English

color terms and their translation. In 1970s,in this period, many scholars compared the color terms between Chinese and English, aiming at finding the differences in language and culture, and contributing to the cross-cultural communication. Bi Jiwan in his book, Unmovable Communication Cross-cultural(1999) introduced the classification of unmovable Communication, in which color terms as a phenomenon of unmoral communication drew attention of many scholars. The study on color terms went further in 1980s, reached peak in1990s.In this period, many works published. These works mainly studied from lexical cultural differences, semantic function, contrastive, cross-cultural communication, historical and so on .Each decade had many works and achievement, but cannot list all of the fruits, because of the length of thesis.

1.2 The significance of the present study

In recent decades, people are more interested in color terms from cross-cultural communication perspective, there are mainly two reasons.

First, the world people live in a word of color, people‟s eyes can perceive everything, Everything has its own color, even human beings are marked by the appearance of color. Colors play an important role in the world and people‟s life. Color terms are product of culture; different color terms have different implication meanings. Chinese and English have their own color term system and function. It influenced the development of technology, industry, economic, and reflected the social changes, custom and culture. Globalization promotes the development of cultures, whereas, color terms are used by people in cross-cultural association.

Second, people live in the society which changes in technology, economic and travel. It created a word which makes people connected with others from different cultures frequently. These interactions will make the world like a village. “Huston Smith said the same thing”When historians look back on our society, they may remember it most, not for space travel or the release of nuclear energy, but as the time when the people of the world first come to take one another serious (Smith, Huston1991:7).In these background, people from different cultures have different understandings about the color terms. So it is necessary to study color terms. This result of this thesis will tell people how to understand the color terms from the perspective of cross-culture and contrastive study of Chinese and English color terms.