Optimized Representation Of The Symbolic Meaning Of Color Words In Foreign-Oriented Chinese-English Dictionaries

Color is an integral part of people's daily lives.To a large extent,people's visual perception of color is not physiologically different,and color words exist in every language.However,language is the product of culture,and the perception of color is closely related to cultural characteristics.Therefore,color words in different languages may have unique symbolic meanings and thus forming the culture-specific usages,which is often a difficult point in teaching Chinese as a foreign language.As an important tool for assisting second language teaching,foreign-oriented Chinese-English dictionaries should help non-native speakers comprehend these unique cultural usages,but the existing dictionaries do not pay much attention to it,and learners' needs are not taken into account in terms of definitional translation and representation.Therefore,from the perspective of culture and in light of the Meaning-driven Multidimensional Definition Theory,the thesis tries to propose feasible suggestions for the optimization of presenting symbolic meanings in color word entries of foreign-oriented Chinese-English dictionaries.From the view of language and cognition,conceptual metaphor is the formation mechanism of symbolic meanings in color words.Due to the differences in the metaphor system and cultural symbolism,Chinese and Western thinking habits and cultural backgrounds,there exists conflicting or vacant correspondence of symbolic meanings between Chinese and English basic color words.Dictionary compilers should consider learners' needs: they often lack the cultural context,and affected by the negative transfer of mother tongue and the over-generalization of target language knowledge,thus having certain difficulties in understanding the symbolic meaning of color words.On the basis of the research into current practices of color word entries in foreign-oriented Chinese-English dictionaries,some deficiencies in representing the symbolic meanings of color words are found:(1)incomplete inclusion of symbolicmeanings;(2)mismatch between definitions and examples;(3)insufficient examples;(4)lack of systematization;(5)disregard of CFL learners' cultural backgrounds.In light of the Meaning-driven Multidimensional Definition Theory,four guiding principles and several feasible methods are proposed to achieve the definitional translation of the symbolic meanings in color word entries of foreign-oriented Chinese-English dictionaries.The principles entail usage-based representation,a holistic representation of the symbolic meaning,presenting the prototype semantic features and activating the cultural implication.The feasible methods include:(1)providing a holistic profile in cultural implication box;(2)connecting the cultural implication and independent senses;(3)providing proper equivalents to show prototype semantic features;(4)providing additional semantic annotations;(5)providing grammatical information;(6)providing sufficient examples;(7)providing reference information to the relevant color words.The multidimensional representation of the symbolic meaning can truly realize the definitional translation in bilingual dictionaries,and better serve learners' needs.