A Comparative Study Of Cultural Connotations Of Color Terms Between English And Chinese From The Perspective Of Functional Semantic Field

We live in a colorful world. There are a great variety of color words or a large number of color expressions denoting the sensation of color and describing the colorful things in the world. Although differing in their quantities in the color inventory of different languages, basic color terms construct the prototypes around which all the color terms can be divided into different categories of color terms. Every color term in one category shares the most essential character of the prototype, namely the color of the basic color term.Color words have rich cultural connotations. Resulting from different social cultures, historical processes and geographic conditions, English and Chinese color terms reflect the discrepancy in the cultural aspects such as social values, customs, color preference etc. Therefore, it is of significance to have a comparative study on the cultural connotations of basic color terms between English and Chinese.This thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter One has a general review of the studies about color terms made home and abroad and discusses the necessity and possibility of this study. The most basic reason why the former comparative studies of color terms fall behind is because there is lack of a scientific, systematic and most applicable comparative model which can be found in the fact that the comparison is only limited to list some common cultural connotations of English and Chinese basic color terms. Secondly, the author clarifies the relationship between color and color term. Thirdly, the author defines the two concepts"basic color terms"and"cultural connotations". Finally the author introduces the study methods and organization of this thesis.Chapter two introduces the theoretical framework of the perspective of functional semantic field (FSF). This thesis employs the two concepts—prototype and semantic field—to categorize all the color terms, and construct a new comparative model, namely the functional semantic field of the prototypes, to compare the cultural connotations between the English and Chinese basic color terms by setting up four figures.Chapter Three compares the cultural connotations of the basic color terms between English and Chinese from the perspective of functional semantic fields. The comparison is focused on the following functional semantic fields constructed: first, each basic color term in...