ABSTRACT

Color is a sense of the objective world. People are closely associated with color and can't live without color words.As an important group of words in language, almost all of the languages have color words.Except for showing the various colors of nature, color terms also express rich emotions and have cultural coqnnotations.In this case,color words are no longer simply mean the color, but given symbolic meaning .people's perceptions of color in different cultural backgrounds are distinct.Due to the cultural difference between east and west, the connotation of the color words are very different.The paper select several typical color words, tries to compare in their usage and to further explore the difference and similarity between English and Chinese and discuss on causes of the differences.

Key Words: color words，cognition，cultural connotation，objective factors，subjective factors

摘要

颜色是人们对客观世界的一种感知，人们的实际生活与颜色密切相关，人们生活在色彩之中。颜色词是语言词汇系统的重要组成部分，几乎所有的语言都有颜色词。除了表达各类自然色彩之外，颜色词也包含着丰富情感和文化内涵。在这种情况下，颜色词已不单纯是表示客观颜色的指称意义了，而是被赋予了不同的象征意义，不同文化背景的人们对颜色的感知和审美体验是同中有异，异中有同。由于中西方文化的差异，颜色词所表达的含义也各不相同。本文将选取几个典型的颜色词来分析颜色词在中英文化中用法，探讨形成这种差异性的各种原因。

关键词：颜色词，认知，文化内涵， 客观因素，主观因素

1. Introduction

1.1. Background Information
 Language is the carrier of culture, every language has many vocabularies which express their own particular cultural concept, as a key element of the language, and vocabulary is closely related to culture. And they are inseparable. Their meaning is the most understandable only in a distinct culture. Once beyond their own cultural background the meaning of the words may change. English and Chinese belong to two distinct languages, rooted in two distinct cultural systems. English and Chinese are a reflection of the unique psychological and aesthetic emotion of Western and Chinese culture. Color, as an integral part of the language, is very common to use in our daily life. World of colour is endless, and each color has its unique physical properties, and also has a vivid reflection in the language.