The comparative study of color words in Chinese and English cultures 中英文化中颜色词的比较.docVIP

The comparative study of color words in Chinese and English cultures 中英文化中颜色词的比较 【关键词】颜色词；文化内涵；跨文化交际；比较I. IntroductionCulture is accumulation of history, literature, religion, knowledge, language and so on in a broad sense. Language is the carrier and mirror of culture. On the other hand, language is influenced and shaped by culture, which reflects culture.?“Language is not only subject to the culture, but also influence the culture and thought of a specific ethnic group. Language and culture are dependent and active on each other. Sometimes, the influence of language on culture and thought may also be decisive.”1 Colors are all around and people use color words to describe the colorful physical world, which are very abundant in both Chinese and English languages. Color can convey messages, express emotions and identify the environment. Therefore people attach particular meanings to colors. As a result of respective geographical and socio-cultural environment, though patterns and economical conditions, color words have far surpassed their original meanings, and have assigned different cultural connotations. According to the famous BK Hypothesis——Berlin and Kay consider that all languages include two to eleven basic colors, which are?“black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange, gray.”2 This paper mainly talks about seven of them, which are red, yellow, green, blue, white, black and purple. The denotations of these basic color words are similar in Chinese and English while the cultural connotations of them are different.?The previous scholars home and abroad have made profound studies on color words and obtained substantial achievements. Most of them focused on the symbolic meanings of color words in respective culture. This paper pays much attention to the comparative study of color words in Chinese and English cultures and various aspects related to the cultural connotations of color words from significance and detailed comparisons, to th