Abstract

     We live in a colorful world where various colors permeate every field of our life.   Through contrastive study, this thesis explores the similarities of cultural connotations of “red” in the fields of festivals, warning, debauchery etc. and differences in the fields of violence, revolution, good luck, emotion and so on. On the basis of similarities and differences, this thesis gives a detailed analysis of the cultural backgrounds that cause the similarities and differences, such as perception, custom, religion, social political system, natural and social background and so on, and then proposes several implications for English language learning, translation as well as cross-cultural communication.

Key words: red, color terms, symbolization, implication, cross-cultural communication

摘 要

  在人类生活的彩色世界里，颜色渗透着我们生活的各个领域。本文主要用文化对比的方法，在喜庆、示警抑制等方面探讨了“红色”在中西方文化中的相同点，并从暴力革命、成功、情感等方面探讨了其不同点。在此基础上，本文从认知、习惯、宗教、社会政治体系、自然社会背景等方面分析了中西方红色文化内涵相同点和不同点的原因，探讨了中西方红色不同的文化内涵对对语言学习教学，对颜色词翻译，以及对跨文化交际的启示。
 
关键词：红色，颜色词，象征，启示，跨文化交际

1. Introduction   
1.1    The relationship between color terms and culture
     In our daily life, we often come across many things of different colors. Color terms in both English and Chinese are used to describe what people see in their eyes and to reflect color-related images they produce in their minds.
     It is true that human beings share similar perceptions of color because the physiology of human eyes is more or less the same. However, in essence, there exist more differences than similarities in color terminology from one language to another. It is now clear that different cultures have different color terms and have different understandings about them. On the one hand, different languages may have different divisions of color. For example, in Chinese, there are six basic color terms; in English, there exist eleven; while in Russian, twelve basic color terms are available. On the other hand, different languages entail different color-related associations. For example, in English-speaking countries, the color term“red” is often used derogatorily due to its association of sanguineness, violence, and aversion. On the contrary, with the connotation of happiness, celebration, and good luck, the color term“红”is an auspicious color in China and is often used positively.   
     Therefore, in order to learn a foreign or second language well and communicate in the target language properly, we should have a better understanding of different cultural connotations of basic color terms in English and Chinese.