A Comparative Study On Cultural Association Of Basic Color Terms In English And Chinese

As we all know, language and culture are closely connected with each other. Language is the carrier of culture; culture is loaded in language. Language is influenced and shaped by culture and meanwhile reflects culture. To understand one language, understanding its culture is one must.Color is perception of people to the objective world. In human language there are great numbers of color terms recording color of the world. These color terms are often used in human language, so gradually they are endowed with rich emotional elements and cultural connotations. In cross-cultural communication, different nations with different cultural backgrounds or people of the same nations with the same backgrounds but belonging to different social groups or social classes have different perception of various colors. The different perceptions of colors result in a series of associative meanings of color terms.In recent years, more and more scholars from abroad and home have been paying their attention on color terms, but few have made systematic study on them. In China, especially, most of the scholars are striving to study what are the different associations of color terms and how they can be properly and adequately translated between English and Chinese. There are rare and even no researches on why those color terms are endowed with different associations in English and Chinese cultures. In view of the present situation, this thesis intends to discuss color terms from the following three aspects. Fist of all, the thesis chooses some of the basic color terms defined in both languages and demonstrate the same associative meanings of them. Secondly, more important, the thesis chooses six basic color terms that are widely accepted by scholars, namely, "black", "white", "red", "yellow", "green" and "blue" to show their different associative meanings in Chinese world and English world. Finally and most importantly, the thesis is striving to show the reasons for those differences through comparing different living environment, religion, social conventions and historical backgrounds and so on between Chinese and Westerners.Cultural differences result in the different understanding of color terms in China and the west world. If cultural connotations of these color terms are adequately and properly understood by Chinese and westerners and then they may get help to understand these two different cultures. The study on color terms must be helpful to sharing and understanding between two cultures. This is vital for successful cross-cultural communication.