中英文化下颜色词的不同涵义 摘要

摘要

人类生活在一个丰富多彩的世界里，颜色渗透在我们生活的各个领域，颜色本身是一种抽象概念却为具体颜色词所描绘，颜色词是人们根据自然界中颜色的视觉意像用自己独特的语言给其添上的不同标签，而基本颜色词则是颜色范畴的典型代表因为它们能将该范畴最好地表现出来，它们是极富表现力的语言，不同语言的基本颜色词承载着不同文化的内涵，了解文化的含义及文化内涵的定义，理解颜色词与文化之间的关系有助于弄清色彩语言文化内涵的普遍性与民族差异性。

在人类语言变迁的历史长河中，英语和汉语用来表示颜色的颜色词数不胜数，而英汉基本颜色词如red和红, yellow和黄，white和白，black和黑, green和绿以及purple和紫作为文化承载反映着明显的民族文化差异，在人类语言中占据着举足轻重的地位。由于生活习惯、社会、历史、以及地理等文化因素的差异，英汉基本颜色词有着各自的文化内涵，运用文化对比的方法参照大量基本颜色词短句和习语，便可从色彩与宗教、政治、社会心理，以及自然和社会背景等几方面对英汉基本颜色词的文化内涵进行全面理解。众所周知，由于东西文化差异，英汉文化交流出现的误解在所难免，然而对比研究英汉基本颜色词文化内涵的异同对跨文化交际，翻译以及教学中有关颜色词的理解则大有裨益。

[关键词] 对比研究；基本颜色词；文化内涵

Abstract

We are living in a colorful world where there is a variety of colors permeating every area of our daily life. Color itself is an abstract concept and a vague sense, nevertheless it is described by the specific color term. Color terms are the labels which are added to colors by people who live up to their different visual image from nature and basic color terms are the prototypes in the different color categories for they best show the color of their own category. Basic color terms, magic in expression, are the cultural carriers of different languages. Having a good knowledge of the relationship between color terms and cultural connotation is benefit to make clear out the similarities and national differences in color terms.

English and Chinese both have numerous color terms while they acquire different connotations as a result of the development of languages in the long history. The basic color words like red and红, yellow and黄, black and黑, white and白, green and绿, purple and紫，have heavy weight in our human languages. As a group of culture-loaded words, basic color words express and reflect different cultural discrepancies. In regard to the two cultural habits, social history and geographical conditions vary a great deal. English and Chinese basic color terms bear their own cultural connotation. With the correct definition of cultural connotation and the analysis of connections between color words and culture, a great many examples of expressions and idioms can be used to make a contrast of cultural connotation between the basic color pairs mentioned above by comparing the two cultural connotations from religious, political aspects，national psychology and social backgrounds, exploring the similarities and national differences in color terms. As we all know, there’s no doubt that some misunderstandings can’t be avoided in cross-communication for the discrepancies do exist between Eastern and Western culture. However, the cultural contrastive study on basic color terms will expectedly benefit cross-cultural communication, Chinese translation and English teaching a lot. [Key Words] contrastive study; basic color terms; cultural connotations