A Comparative Study Of The Color Terms In English And Chinese Proverbs

Language seems like a mansion and vocabulary is the most dynamic and sensitive construction materials of the mansion. Vocabulary plays an important part in any language. Meanwhile vocabulary reflects all aspects of social and cultural life, particularly the most representative color terms. Color terms are relatively special in proverbs. Based on the theory of contrastive linguistics, it is worth of discussion on the structures, forms, contents and functions of color terms in proverbs under different English and Chinese language backgrounds. This paper mainly makes contrastive analysis on the following aspects of the basic color terms in English and Chinese:In the theory of cultural linguistics, language and culture are closely related. Color terms are endowed with different cultural connotations by different nationalities, cultures, social systems and values. Therefore the contained cultural differences in the basic color terms in English and Chinese are contrastively analyzed and the application of color terms in English and Chinese proverbs are correspondingly categorized. According to grammatical rules, the rules of composition, word-formation rules and rules of change of color terms in English and Chinese proverbs are not the same; English color terms may be adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs in proverbs, with diversified means of expression; Chinese color terms are featured with three points, namely more prominence in positions in proverbs, preference for expression through matching with other colors and diversified parts-of-speech. From the perspective of pragmatic function, English and Chinese color terms both show the function of color painting and the function of expression, though there are some differences between them in detail. From the perspective of semantics, English and Chinese color terms have great semantic differences.