Culture in Color Terms between China and the West 從顏色詞看中西方文化

1、從顏色詞看中西方文化culture in color terms between china and the westabstract: both in chinese and english, there are many color words, which express mentality and emotions of people under different culture backgrounds. by making a comparison of these words, people can understand their culture implications. a

2、s an unusual group of the lexical system, color terms, compared with other word categories, have their outstanding peculiarities. studying the culture implications of the words is of great importance for successful communication. focusing on the different cultural connotations of color words in chin

3、ese and english, this paper presents a comparative analysis of their structural characteristics, semantic evolution, and grammatical functions, etc. the author is trying to make an analysis on basic color terms in english and chinese by comparing their semantic meanings and culture backgrounds. in t

4、hese contrast study, we can know that the implication of colors in chinese and english is based on the national cultural psychology and the natural reaction. the words of color play an important role in national communication, we can excavate the mutual affection of chinese and english, its importan

5、t for our study.key words: color words; cultural implications; translation; comparison摘 要：在中文和英文中，有許多表達來自不同文化背景下人們的感情和思想的顏色詞。通過對這些顏色詞的比較，我們就會明白隱藏在這些詞之后的含義。作為詞匯學(xué)里一個不尋常的群組，與其他詞類相比，顏色詞有他自己重要的特色。學(xué)習(xí)這些含義對我們的交際有很大的幫助。這篇論文對比分析了這些顏色詞及短語在中西方的發(fā)展史，語法和其含義。作者通過在語義和文化背景兩方面的對比對中西方的基本顏色詞做了詳細分析。在這些對比中，我們可以得知在民族心理和自然反

6、應(yīng)下中西方的不同顏色詞的含義。顏色詞在國際交際中扮演著重要的角色，我們可以發(fā)掘出中西方的互相作用力，這對我們的學(xué)習(xí)有很大幫助。關(guān)鍵詞：顏色詞，文化寓意，翻譯，對比contentsi. introduction .1ii. review of basic color terms in english and chinese.1a. historical review of color1b. peoples scientific view on color.2c. theoretic review of basic color terms in english and chinese.2iii.

7、semantic comparison and contrast of color terms in english andchinese.2a. semantic comparison of color terms in english and chinese .21. black.32. white.43. red.54. blue.65. yellow .7b. comparison of the associative meanings.8iv. cultural comparison and contrast of color terms in english and chinese

8、.8a. color terms and religions8b. color terms and taboos9v. conclusion.9works cited.11i. introduction people are living in a beautiful, wonderful, and colorful world: there is blue sky, white clouds, red flowers, green grass and so on. it is obvious that the life is so closely connected with colors

9、that colors are playing a very important role in the life. for centuries, peoples research on colors has never been stopped. on the contrary, peoples utilization of them has become more and more efficient. color is a natural broad spectrum to certain situations, conditions and presence of the certai

10、n moments. everything has its own color. as we know, the development of human cognition and language can not be separated from apperceive and experience which we get from the external source. different languages make different culture.what does “green with envy” mean? do people turn green when they

11、have feelings of envy? if paul is in a blue mood, in what kind of mood he is? is he joyful, excited, or sad. in the expressions above, green and blue obviously do not mean just the color. each has additional meanings certain cultural association that are not evidence from the words alone. this paper

12、 holds that among various definitions of culture, our concern should be its anthropological sense the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and artifacts (tools, pot

13、tery, houses, machines, works of art) acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. in this paper, the cultural association of certain colors will be discussed, with “colorful” phrases and expressions in both china and the west used as illustration

14、. ii. review of basic color terms in english and chinese a. historical review of colorat the very time when human beings appeared, they found themselves in the world which was full of colors. however, peoples recognition on color went through a fairly hard and long process. in ancient time, color wa

15、s regarded as a kind of magic. thus, it was common for people of that time to paint the dead people with darker color. moreover, that funerary custom can still be found in many races of asia and south america now. people would like to draw some pictures on the deads faces and bodies, which are mostl

16、y in red, white or black, especially in red. anthropologists point out that blood is the symbol of life, thus to color the red is a way for the people to express their hope of the deads reviving. obviously, color was once considered as a kind of magic. however, at that time color was only used as a

17、tool for people to express or long for the happiness of life, the sadness of death, the joy of victory, and so on. afterwards, with the development of cognition, ancient people began using color to decorate some certain kinds of objects. thus, little by little, color lost its magic, and became a kin

18、d of symbol instead. as the time goes, color became a kind of special symbol, which was closely linked with humans life. however, peoples scientific view on color came out far later than their developing and utilizing on it.b. peoples scientific view on colorin ancient greece, a philosopher called z

19、enon (342 270 b.c.) once pointed out that color was the original form of substance. also, aristotle (384 322 b.c.) made a great deal of study on color and claimed that darkness was caused by the lack of light. however, some of their findings were partial and very limited. for bacon, the rainbow held

20、 the key not only to an explanation of vision but also to the whole of science itself. though modern color science is less connecting with its goals, its ambitions are similar. against this background, newton eradicated the last traces of aristotelian distinctions between lights and surfaces by demo

21、nstrating that the color are special dispositions in the rays, that is, the elementary constituents of light are monochromatic beams. in 1666, newton, for the rest time in his life as well as in humans history, distinguished seven colors in the order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, tha

22、t pushed forward the study of color a great deal. after that, many other scientists continued their study on color and made many progresses. there is one thing for sure that from the very ancient time to now color has been continuously and ever lastingly decorating our planet. c. theoretic review of

23、 basic color terms in english and chinese as an element, which is used to convey the concept of color, color terms are in the language system, a group of special words. the color-term system has very distinctive cultural connotation, which makes itself a special window for the researchers to study t

24、he whole system of words. people always use language to express their understandings and thought.iii. semantic comparison and contrast of color terms in english and chinese a. semantic comparison and contrast of the color terms in english and chinese in studying the subject of colors, as early as 19

25、52, kroeber and kluckhohn listed 164 definitions of culture that they found in the anthropology literature. and, many new definitions have appeared since then. according to bates and plog, “culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of a society

26、 use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning”(1953).because of different history, geography, ideology, economics, politics, culture, language, life style, social customs, etc., people in different parts of the world, espe

27、cially those in the east and those in the west do different meaning in their cultural patterns or orientations. different colors have different implications, sometimes, because of the culture background, the same color has different implications in china and the west. the author of this paper analyz

28、es implication of colors to illustrate cultural differences between china and the west. such examples of color as white, black, blue, yellow, red are given as follows. 1. blackthe color black is often associated with negative qualities, which is true in both english and chinese. for example, “black

29、hearted” means evil, with a negative meaning. it is the basic taboo color in the western culture to be black, have reflected westerners spiritual abandoning and disgust. it symbolizes the death, ill omen and disaster. further examples in english may include “a black day”, “a black spot”, “a black sh

30、eep”, “a black mood”, “a black comedy” and “a black look”. “a black sheep” refers to member (of a family or other groups) who is thought to be a disgrace to other members, just like in “now every profession has got its black sheep”. “a black mood” refers to a kind of depression, bad temper, etc. jus

31、t like in “he has been in a black mood ever since the board meeting”. “a black comedy” refers to a play in which comic elements are combined with more tragic or absurdly evil ones. “a black look” is a look of strong dislike, disapproval, etc, as in “i saw his wife giving him a black look when he bro

32、ught out the second bottle of whisky”. black in english is also associated with melancholy, pessimism, sorrow and unluckiness. for example, “black art”, which refers to magic or monstrous skill. “blackball” means a vote, which is against someone or something, or a refusal to someone is taking part i

33、n. “black death” refers to a deadly disease in the fourteenth century, while blackleg refers to a cheat. “black-letter day”, which is opposite to “red-letter day”, means an unlucky day. “a black lie” means a lie, which is full of evil intentions. since 1960s, “black” has taken the place of “negro”,

34、which makes the black people feel proud. accordingly, there appeared some new words such as black culture, black nationalism, black english and black studies. interestingly, in business english, running a business profitably, “in the black” has a good meaning, running a business profitably. for exam

35、ple, “since he became a manager, the company has been running in the black”. both in chinese and english there are various terms indicating that black is often associated with negative qualities: blacklist, black market, black-hearted and some of others. in chinese culture, black is a mysterious col

36、or with several different associations. “玄” is one form to refer to the color black, and this character conveys a sense of puzzlement or mystery, for example “玄機”, “玄術(shù)”, “玄要”. another form is simply “黑”, which mainly conveys the idea of darkness, danger, rebellion, or unlawfulness. for example, “黑”

37、in “黑咕隆咚”, “黑壓壓” means dark, while in “黑幫”, “黑手” , “黑” means rebellious, which is in contrast with “紅” in chinese. “黑市” means an illegal market, and “黑心腸” means an evil heart or intention.2. white to native speakers of english, white connotes purity and innocence. that is why the brides are dressed

38、in white in western countries. “white spirit” refers to a pure heart, and to make ones name white again, means to vindicate someone and recover him a good fame again, like “he struggled for twenty years just in order to make his name white again”. in some english expressions, white has some other as

39、sociations. “a white christmas” means it snowed at christmas time, like “the woman rubbed her hands and observed that it was cold enough to have a white christmas”. this expression is in contrast with “a green christmas” which refers to a christmas without snow. “a white-collar job” is a professiona

40、l, business or clerical employment, like “the expansion of higher education lead an increasing number of people to expecting white-collar jobs”. “a white hope” refers to a talented person who is thought likely to bring success or victory, like “our white hope wrecked his knee on the eve of the match

41、 so we were doomed from the start”. to most chinese and westerners, white has certain similar connotations: purity, innocence. but does this apply to the english term “white lie”? can a lie be innocent? the answer is negative, “a white lie” is supposed to be a harmless one. “a white lie” is a lie th

42、at does no harm and telling a lie is merely more convenient or polite than telling the truth, for example, i said there was no more drink in the house, “a white lie” amply justified by the need to get him sobered up. for another example, an older sister might say to a younger sister and her boyfrien

43、d: “you two go ahead to the movie. ive got a lot of work tonight. thanks anyway.” she knows that the two want to go out alone and that she was invited just for the sake of politeness. so she makes up the excuse that she has a lot of work to do. this is a white lie, one by which no harm or deceit is

44、intended. the color white is not necessarily associated with something good. “a white elephant” and “a white night”, have bad or unpleasant connotations. “a white elephant” is something useless, seldom used, or too costly to be maintained, like “the recent budget has offered hundreds of millions of

45、pounds to shore up private enterprises and to finance such white elephants as concorde and the channel tunnel”. “a white night” is simply a sleepless night, like “i was not particularly tired or sleepy after my white night”. and “a white slave” refers to a white-skinned prostitute, especially one in

46、veigled into a foreign country by the promise of other employment, like “people say that earls court is the centre of the white slave trade”. i wouldnt doubt it. there is continual sexual electricity in the air. in chinese, the equivalence of white is “白” or “素”. the chinese word “白” in the phrase “

47、清清白白” is explicitly associated with purity and innocence, which has the same meaning as that of “潔白” and “白玉無暇”. in chinese culture, white is also the symbol of death, therefore, “白事” actually means funerals, and the vehicles used for that purpose are called “白車” or “素車”. in ancient china, “白衣” was

48、used to refer to the common people, and those who didnt get any positions in offices were called “白身”. in beijing opera, the colors of faces have profound meanings, and white is an unpleasant color, however. cao caos face, for example, which is in white color, signifies slyness. “小白臉” is also a dero

49、gatory word, which refers to the man who is handsome but insincere, and always relies on women. in chinese, white is also used as the opposite side of red, which means rebellion, always in a derogatory sense. “白軍”, “白匪”, “白狗子” are all referring to the enemies, “白區(qū)” is the district or place where the

50、 enemy occupies.3. redthe red color is usually associated with celebrations and joyful occasions. this is true both in english speaking countries and china. in western countries, red is the color of life, as well as the color of fire and blood. therefore, red can be used to represent life, birth, lo

51、ve, warmth, inspired passion and celebration. for example, in english we find such expressions as “a red-letter day”, “holy red”, “paint the town red”, and “roll out the red carpet”. “a red-letter day” means a day specially looked forward to, or remembered, when something remarkable and usually plea

52、surable will happen, or happened, like in “the national day is a red-letter day”. the expression is probably based on church customs. it comes from the fact that in calendars all holidays are printed in red and other days are printed in black. “to paint the town red” means to enjoy a lively, boister

53、ous time in public places, often attract the notice of, or cause some disturbance to others. “to roll out the red carpet” refers to making a respectful reception or attention, like “they never expected to be given the red carpet until they arrived there”.on the other hand, red color is not always as

54、sociated with something pleasant. it also conveys the meaning of war, loss of blood, the destructive power of fire and hatred. therefore, it also acts as a sign of warning, danger, even death. for example, “in the red” means at a lot of profit. “red flag” conveys the meaning of a sign for danger, wh

55、ich warns people not to go on. “red-handed” is used for the criminals who are caught at the spot, for example, “the thief was caught red-handed in the supermarket when he tried to escape”. “red tape” means the rigid application and observation of rules and regulations in all their minute details wit

56、hout regard for the end they were designed to achieve, as in “susan is a casual girl who hates the red tape”. this expression came from lawyers and government officials former practice of keeping their papers and records in bundles tied with red tape. red is also associated with certain emotions suc

57、h as embarrassment, excitement of anger. “see red” means “to get extremely angry”, while “waving a red flag” means doing something that could cause quick anger in other people, as in “the mere mention of his hated cousins name was like waving a red flag in front of him”. moreover, “red rag” conveys roughly the same meaning as “waving a red flag”, as in the mere mention of that incident is a red rag or something to tease the bull. “red meat” is simply beef and mutton, in contrast with “white meat”, which refers to chicken and other fowls, while “red caps” refer to por