摘　 要

因民族历史文化、政治、宗教、习俗和社会环境等因素的影响，中英文化语言中色彩词用法各异，颜色观也有所不同。中英文化在长期的历史沉淀中形成了各自独特的颜色观，折射出绚丽多姿的民族文化。文化制约了颜色词的意义演变，颜色词的文化意义又折射出了丰富的文化内涵。由于文化内容、文化传统和文化心理各异，很多英汉颜色词的文化内涵差异较大。我们不仅要注意观察它们本身的基本意义，更要留心它们含义深广的象征意义。象征意义在不同民族语言中往往有不同的特点，有些特点甚至构成了人们对经过引伸、转义以后颜色的崇尚和禁忌。本文就中英文化以上方面进行对比分析，试图说明中英文化中颜色词的不同象征意义。

关键词：颜色词；文化背景；象征意义

Abstract

There are differences in the use of colors and color words between Chinese and English cultures. The different cultures bring different attitudes toward the same color because of different language habits, historical backgrounds, traditional customs and so on. Although the meanings of color words are restrained by cultures, they reveal wide connotation of cultures. We should pay attention to observing not only their basic meanings, but also the deep and broad symbolic meanings. The symbolic meanings of color words often have different features in different language cultures. And some of them even have become taboos and adornments since the meanings of the color words are extended and transferred. This paper tries to illustrate the different symbolic meanings of color words in Chinese and English cultures by comparison and analysis of them.

Key words: color words; cultural background; symbolic meaning   

1 Introduction
1.1 research background  
    Color words, in whatever languages, are used for describing different things. The statistics show that there are more than 7 million kinds of colors can be recognized in the nature. However, the color names are very limited in the languages because there are only dozens of colors expressed in single-morpheme word. A number of color words are expressed by adding modifiers, for instance, crimson, pale red, apple green, azure, coffee color etc. Color words reflect the different cultural connotations in different languages. People regard color words with special esteem in different countries. We should not only understand their basic meanings, but also pay attention to their deeply symbolic meanings. The symbolic meanings of color words have different features in different cultures. History, background, aesthetic and psychology are different because of our country’s geography. So, the feeling of the color words will not be the same, and the symbolic meanings of color words will be various.