A Study Of Cultural Connotations Of Basic Color Terms In English And Chinese

Since we are living in a colorful world, there are a variety of color words or a large number of color expressions in our books describing all the color things in the nature and in the society as well. Therefore, basic color terms ( black and黑, white and白, red and红, yellow and黄, green and绿, blue and蓝, brown and棕, purple and紫,gray and灰)have heavy weight in our human languages. Basic color terms, as a group of culture-loaded words, express and reflect different cultural diversities in the aspect of minds, customary habits as well as color orientations. English and Chinese both have abundant color terms while they acquire different connotations as a result of the development of languages in the long history. Misunderstandings might be easily caused in this regard as the two cultural habits, social history and geographical conditions vary a great deal. So, it seems to be of great significance to make a contrastive study of the basic color terms in Chinese and in English as China is opening its door to the outside world and communications between China and western world are on a daily basis. Three chapters are inclusive of this thesis. At first, the author makes an introduction to the thesis, giving a very brief introduction of each chapter. Chapter one defines the basic color terms and further more, makes a literature review of the study of color terms both in foreign countries and in China. Also, the author explains to the relationship between culture and language and in particular, eleborates on the relationship between culture and color terms, making it possible to start with the writing of the thesis. By making contrastive study of basic color terms in English and Chinese, it is beneficial for us to do English teaching and translation, appreciation of English culture as well as study of doing cross-culture research. The second chapter makes an analysis of word-formation characteristics of both English and Chinese basic color terms. Afterwards, the author makes a detailed study of the contrast of cultural connotations of the basic color terms in English and Chinese. Moreover, a large number of examples are offered to illustrate the very contrast of cultural connotations of English basic color terms and their Chinese equivalents. In chapter three, reasons for similarities and differences are explained from a variety of perspectives. Conclusion is drawn at the end of the paper. By making a contrastive study of the color terms, we can have an idea of what is happening in people's mind, in the development of their languages and culture.