英语毕业论文Culture-in-Color-Terms-between-China-and-the-West.doc

从颜色词看中西方文化

Culture in Color Terms between China and the West

Abstract: 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. As 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 Chinese 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 these 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, it’s important for our study.

Key words: color words; cultural implications; translation; comparison

摘 要：在中文和英文中，有许多表达来自不同文化背景下人们的感情和思想的颜色词。通过对这些颜色词的比较，我们就会明白隐藏在这些词之后的含义。作为词汇学里一个不寻常的群组，与其他词类相比，颜色词有他自己重要的特色。学习这些含义对我们的交际有很大的帮助。这篇论文对比分析了这些颜色词及短语在中西方的发展史，语法和其含义。作者通过在语义和文化背景两方面的对比对中西方的基本颜色词做了详细分析。在这些对比中，我们可以得知在民族心理和自然反应下中西方的不同颜色词的含义。颜色词在国际交际中扮演着重要的角色，我们可以发掘出中西方的互相作用力，这对我们的学习有很大帮助。
关键词：颜色词，文化寓意，翻译，对比

Contents

I. Introduction ………………………………………………………………..……1
II. Review of Basic Color Terms in English and Chinese………….……………1
A. Historical review of color……………………………………………………………1
B. People’s scientific view on color……………………………………………………..2
C. Theoretic review of basic color terms in English and Chinese……….…………...2
III. Semantic Comparison and Contrast of Color Terms in English and
Chinese……………………………………………………………………2
A. Semantic comparison of color terms in English and Chinese ……….……………2
1. Black………………………………………………………………….…………..3
2. White…………………………………………………………………..…………4
3. Red……………………………………………………………………..…………5
4. Blue……………………………………………………………………...…….….6
5. Yellow ……………………………………………………..……………..………7
B. Comparison of the associative meanings………………………………………..…8
IV. Cultural Comparison and Contrast of Color Terms in English and Chinese……………………………………………………..………………8
A. Color terms and religions……………………………………………………………8
B. Color terms and taboos………………………………………………………………9
V. Conclusion…..………………………………………………………………...…………9
Works Cited…..……………………………………………………….………..…………11

Culture in Color Terms between China and the West

I. 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 that colors are playing a very important role in the life. For centuries, people’s research on colors has never been stopped. On the contrary, people’s utilization of them has become more and more efficient. Color is a natural broad spectrum to certain situations, conditions and presence of the certain 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 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 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, pottery, 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.

II. Review of Basic Color Terms in English and Chinese

A. Historical review of color
At the very time when human beings appeared, they found themselves in the world which was full of colors. However, people’s recognition on color went through a fairly hard and long process. In ancient time, color was 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 dead’s faces and bodies, which are mostly 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 dead’s reviving. Obviously, color was once considered as a kind of magic. However, at that time color was only used as a 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 kind of symbol instead. As the time goes, color became a kind of special symbol, which was closely linked with human’s life. However, people’s scientific view on color came out far later than their developing and utilizing on it.

B. People’s scientific view on color
In ancient Greece, a philosopher called Zenon (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 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 demonstrating 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 human’s history, distinguished seven colors in the order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, that 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 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 the 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 1952, 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 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, especially 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 analyzes 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. Black
The color black is often associated with negative qualities, which is true in both English and Chinese. For example, “black hearted” means evil, with a negative meaning. It is the basic taboo color in the western culture to be black, have reflected westerner’s 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 sheep”, “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. Just 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 brought 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 in. “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 1960’s, “Black” has taken the place of “Negro”, 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 example, “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 color 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 “玄机”, “玄术”, “玄要”. Another form is simply “黑”, which mainly conveys the idea of darkness, danger, rebellion, or unlawfulness. For example, “黑” in “黑咕隆咚”, “黑压压” means dark, while in “黑帮”, “黑手” , “黑” means rebellious, which is in contrast with “红” in Chinese. “黑市” means an illegal market, and “黑心肠” 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 in white in western countries. “White spirit” refers to a pure heart, and to make one’s 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 associations. “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 professional, 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 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 that 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 boyfriend: “You two go ahead to the movie. I’ve 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 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 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 inveigled into a foreign country by the promise of other employment, like “People say that Earl’s court is the centre of the white slave trade”. I wouldn’t 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 “清清白白” is explicitly associated with purity and innocence, which has the same meaning as that of “洁白” and “白玉无暇”. 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 “白车” or “素车”. In ancient china, “白衣” was used to refer to the common people, and those who didn't get any positions in offices were called “白身”. In Beijing opera,