Abstract

With the economic development in high speed and an increasingly globalizational society, cross culturealcommunication becomes more and more common. However, due to distinct cultural backgrounds, when interacting with people from different cultures, we have to be faced with cultural conflicts, which are often caused by details. If we do not pay enough attention to those details, they may have great influences on the communication. As we know, colour always plays a vital role in the cross cultural communication. In comerical life, it acts as the most outstanding feature of the commodity packing, catching consumers for the first sight. In packaging design, it functions as a kind of design language, or in a sense it is so-called the “packaging” of commodity packing. Nowadays, in the increasingly fierce competition in the globalizational market, a good visual design with colour application can become a temptation for consumers which can hardly be resisted. Besides, it can guide rational consumption and stimulate sales so as to consolidate the vital role of colour in our ordinary life. Therefore, colour application is an important detail that should not be neglected in cross cultural communication. This is also the reason that this thesis does research on cross cultural communication at the angle of colour.

This thesis adopts content analysis and case study as research methods. It employs a series of instances about the same kind of colour with distinct connotations in cross cultural communication as theoretical foundation to analyze cross cultural patterns of both similarity and difference in colour preferences and colour meaning associations and mainly examines cultural influence on managing colours to create and sustain brand and corporate images across international markets.

The result of this thesis will not only be benificial to gaining people’s attention to the use of colour words in international interaction, reducing misunderstandings, achieving better communication, but also be used as reference for multinational companies to enter the international market and take a active participation in market competition.

Key words: Cross-cultural communication, colour terms, connotations, cultual difference