Cultural Differencs between English and Chinese Color Words 英语专业毕业论文.docx

Cultural Differences betweenEnglish and Chinese Color Words1. IntroductionIt has been recognized that language is an essential and important part of a given culture and that the impact of culture upon a given language is something intrinsic and indispensable. On the one hand, language as an integral part of human being, permeates his thinking and way of viewing the world, language both expresses and embodies cultural reality. On the other, language, as a product of culture, helpsto perpetuate the culture, and the changes in language uses reflect the cultural changes in return. As a small component part of language, color words have their own unique characteristics and different meanings in different culture. Different nations always endue words with meanings of their own national culture. As a result, there are certain differences when different national people use color words in language.McLuhan characterized today’s world as a“global village”because of the rapid expansion of worldwide transportation and communication network．In order to understand other nations’ cultures and improve the cross-culture communication, it is necessary to discuss, understand and study the cultural differences between English and Chinese color words. At the same time, it can improve our ability and do better in practice of translation.This paper concretely discusses the cultural differences between English and Chinese color words by the comparison of the two languages. The whole paper is divided into five parts. In the first part, it analyzes the reasons that cause the differences between English and Chinese color words. In the second part, it introduces the different classifications of colors in English and Chinese. Next, the paper discusses whateffect color words make in English and Chinese literary works.Then there is a contrastive analysis by giving examples about different colors of the two languages. At last, it sums up that the importance of knowing and studying the cultural diff