Reconsidering Bilingual Dictionary Definitions Of Colour Terms From The Perspective Of Semantic Cognition

Colour terms are abounded with cultural meanings, which are closely related with human cognition. Colour terms in different languages are a part of their components and they are the essential part of glossary, and are co-related with specific cultures. Therefore they are richly culture-loaded.The research pinpoints the definitions of colour terms in bilingual dictionaries from the angle of semantic cognition. Based on the empirical studies of the definitions of the colour term BLACK in English-Chinese dictionaries and Chinese-English dictionaries, the aim of the thesis is to explore a new method of approaching colour semantics - to consider colour terms from the perspective of human cognition, so as to develop a better methodology for defining them in bilingual dictionaries.After summarizing the fruit of the previous research in colour terms, based on semantic cognition and cognitive prototype, this paper explores into such issues as "How are current bilingual dictionaries dealing with BLACK" and "Cultural meanings of colour terms and how to deal with them in bilingual dictionaries". Through exemplifying some well-known English-Chinese dictionaries and Chinese-English dictionaries, this paper also analyzes the deficiencies of current bilingual dictionaries in defining colour terms. Then, this paper probes deeper into the improvement of bilingual dictionaries, so as to provide adequate semantic, pragmatic (The aspect of cultural is stressed in this paper) and collocational information. Moreover, a questionnaire on colour terms is launched among dictionary users in some universities and thorough analysis is done on it in order to settle the problem that users may come across while they are using colour terms and find the ideal definitions for colour terms.At the end of this paper a model is constructed to improve the definitions ofcolour terms in bilingual dictionaries. The model stresses on the full presentation of the rich meanings in the defining of colour terms and it aims to a successful matching of defining (of the compiler) and information acquiring (of the user). By calling for the rethinking of the definitions in current bilingual dictionaries, the thesis advocates the user's perspective and a concordant relationship between dictionary defining and knowledge acquisition.