摘 要

马克思(1962)指出：“色彩的感觉是一般美感中最大众化的形式。”确实，在生活中我们会接触到各种各样的颜色，有蓝色、黄色、粉色、浅绿、棕红等。美国语言学家伯林和凯(1916)首次提出基本颜色词理论，该理论认为，人类语言具有11种基本颜色。纽马克(1984)认为：“如果人们日常生活中所用的语言中只有两个颜色词，这两个颜色必定是黑和白；如果某种语言有三个颜色词，那么第三个词必然是红色。”这正说明了红色与我们的生活密切相关，不仅代表了中西的文化精髓，描述了民俗生活，而且还表达了人们对美好祝愿和对未知的向往。我们常常看见红车、红地毯、火红的夕阳等等，而随着历史的发展演变，红颜色本身获得了很多的内涵，不仅有其本身固有的物理定义和属性，更多的是人文的特征。中西方由于文化积淀、宗教信仰、历史背景、社会生活不同，红色的意义有共同之处也有不同之处。本文旨在向读者介绍红色在中西文化(主要是中英文化)中的内涵异同，了解红色的象征意义及引申意义，使读者更好地了解异质文化，并通过翻译实践促进跨文化的交流。
 
关键词：红色；文化；翻译

ABSTRACT
   
Maxim (1962) once says, “Color is the most popular form to express people’s feelings of beauty.” Indeed, our life is filled with various colors, such as blue, yellow, pink, pale green, brownish red, to name just a few. An American linguist Berlin Kay (1916) says, “There are 11 basic colors in human languages.” Newmark (1984) holds, “If there were only two colors in the vocabulary, the two colors must be black and white. If there were only three colors, the third kind must be red.” The color “red”, with great significance, is closely connected with our daily life and we seem to attach much attention and great importance to it. A large number of red things are surrounding us, such as red cars, red clothes and even the red Sun. With the development of the history, the color red has been given many different connotations by human beings. It does have its unique definition in physics as well as being characterized with personalities. In addition, there are some similarities and differences of the connotations between Chinese and western cultures especially English-speaking countries, owing to different cultural backgrounds, religions, histories, and life styles. The essay aims at informing readers of its connotations in Chinese and western cultures and its symbolic and associative meanings in order to throw light on these cultures. What’s more, it will help readers learn how to translate the color “red” correctly in different contexts with the final mission to promote cross-cultural communication.
 
Key words: Red; Culture; Translation