Abstract

Vocabulary is the most active part of language. It can reflect the social changes and cultural developments directly. That is to say, vocabulary is the mirror of the society and culture, so are color terms. As our world is full of colors,a large number of color terms exist in both Chinese and English. However, because various peoples have various environments, customs and habits, ways of thinking and religious beliefs, it is no wonder that color terms are interpreted differently in different countries, which can could produce failures and misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication. Therefore, in order to have a deeper insight of cultural differences about these color terms and get a good mastery of cross-culture communication and translation, we should gain a good command of the connotations of these color terms and raise a better awareness of cross-culture. This paper deals with cultural connotations of six basic color terms and their typical usage in language and analyzes factors contributing to the connotative differences of color terms in Chinese and English. In the body part, the paper focuses on the illumination from the difference in cultural connotations between English and Chinese color terms on English -to- Chinese Translation. Finally, some translation strategies are put forward to shorten the cultural distance 
and facilitate cross-cultural communication.

Key words: color terms; cultural connotation; differences; cross-cultural awareness; translations strategies                     

摘要

词汇是语言中最活跃的一部分。它可以直接反映了社会变迁和文化发展。也就是说,词汇是社会和文化的镜子,颜色词也是如此。因为我们的世界充满了色彩,因此大量的颜色词存在中英文语言中。然而,由于不同的民族有不同的环境,风俗习惯,思维方式和宗教信仰,在不同国家相同的颜色词可能有不同的含义。毫无疑问，这会产生跨文化交际的失误与误解。因此,为了对这些颜色词的文化差异能有一个更深的认识，以及更好的掌握跨文化交流和翻译,我们应该进一步提升跨文化意识。本文探讨了六种基本颜色词汇的文化内涵和典型用法并分析影响中英文颜色词内涵差异的因素。本文的主体部分聚焦英汉颜色词的文化内涵差异对英汉翻译的启示。最后提出一些翻译策略，旨在拉近文化距离,使跨文化交际更容易。

关键词：颜色词 文化内涵 文化差异 跨文化意识 翻译技巧