the difference of color in chinese and english and the cause of the difference 英语专业-毕业论文.docVIP

The Difference of Color in Chinese and English and the Cause of the Difference Background Though color is few in number, to the large extent, it demonstrates the difference of the connotation of different language and culture. Thus, to people belong to different culture, color causes different associative meanings, and the connotation meanings of colors are not definitely the same, which causes the difference in different culture and language in using color words. To the practical application of color words, according to Palmer(1984［1976］:75), any language, even if it has the similar color code with other language, but owning to the influence of culture, the contents it indicating are different from each other. This research paper is going to discuss the matter of the difference of the associative meaning of color both in Chinese and in English through method of comparison and contrast of the frequently used color words of red, yellow, blue, green, white, and black, and the reasons of the these difference. Literature Review Many research articles and books contrast and compare the difference of the color words in Chinese and in English, and some of them give the reason of why these differences are formed［ Xie and Zhang, 2004; Mu, 2010; Liang, 2004; Qing, 2003; Zhou, 2002; Zhou and Zhang, 2002; Zhang, 1999; Heider, 1971; Kay and Chad, 1978; Maclaury, 1991; ］however, nearly all these books just said the reason s which causes the differences of color words are culture belonging to different social communities in general. What these books failed to do is to focus on the specific reasons on what part of culture of a social community and the specific reasons of people or what not that influence the formation of these difference. To find out the reasons of the formation of the difference, Mu(2010) compared and contrasted the color words, especially the frequently used color words respectively, and analyzed generally on the respect of culture. While Li (2003)