An Exploration into Connotative Difference between Chinese and English Color Words中英颜色词文化内.docx

An Exploration into Connotative Difference between Chinese and English Color Words中英颜色词文化内.docx

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AnExplorationintoConnotativeDifferencebetweenChineseandEnglishColorWords中英颜色词文化内

毕业论文

论文题目中英颜色词文化内涵差异研究

系别英语系

专业英语外贸

年级2011级

学号201124062103

学生姓名

指导教师

完成时间2015年4月

肇庆学院教务处制

AnExplorationintoConnotativeDifferencebetweenChineseandEnglishColorWords

AThesis

SubmittedtotheSchoolofForeignLanguagesof

ZhaoqingUniversity

inPartialFulfillmentoftheRequirements

fortheDegreeofBachelorofEnglish

By:

DengXianwen

Supervisor：

LiTong

April2015

学术诚信声明

本人所呈交的毕业论文，是在指导教师的指导下独立完成。

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Abstract

Languageistheessentialcomponentandrepresentationofnationalculture,whichwascreatedanddevelopedviahostingitsownculturefeaturesintheprocessofhistoricaldevelopment.Colorwordsaretheindispensablepartofnationalcultureaswell.Territory,custom,politics,religionandvaluedifferenceresultsinconnotativemeaningsofcolorwordsdifferencebetweenChineseandEnglishculture.

Thepaperisfocusonanalyzingtheexplanationandculturalconnotationofcolorwords“Red”,“Green”and“Blue”asfollow.Firstly,itintroducestheSapirWolfehypothesisaswellastheBerlinandKaybasiccolortheory.ThenthesimilaritiesanddifferencedescriptionandculturalconnotationofChineseandEnglishbasiccolorwords“Red”,“Green”and“Blue”arepresented.Thethirdisthecausesofculturalsimilaritiesanddifferenceofthethreecolorwords.Includingthedifferencebetweennaturalenvironment,traditionandcustoms,philosophicandreligiousviews.Lastbutnotleast,theenlightenmentfromthecontrastthattheinteractionofcolorwordsconnotationandculturalinfluenceiswhatcausesthesimilaritiesanddifferenceamongthem.

Keywords:

basiccolorwords“Red”,“Green”and“Blue”;culturalconnotationsimilaritiesanddifference;causes;interaction

内容摘要

各民族在其历史发展过程中创造和发展起来的具有本民族的特点文化，称为民族文化，而语言既是民族文化的重要组成部分，也是民族文化的表现形式。

颜色词是民族文化中不可或缺的一部分，因为地域、风俗、政治、宗教以及价值观等方面的不同，中英文化中对应的颜色词也代表不同意义，以至于基本颜色词常会引起误解。

本文对比总结“红、绿、蓝”在英汉中的阐释及与文化内涵，作出了以下的分析：

首先，叙述了萨皮尔﹒沃夫假说以及柏林与凯伊基本色彩理论作为论述依据；其次，对比分析中英共有的基本颜色词“红、绿、蓝”描述及其文化内涵共性与差异；然后，从中英文化共性与差异上分析“红、绿、蓝”文化差异形成的原因，包括自然环境差异、传统与习俗差异、哲学观差异和宗教差异；最后，做出总结分析，由此得出颜色词内涵与文化相互影响相互渗透是其产生异同的深层原因的启示。

关键词：

基本颜色词“红、绿、蓝”；文化内涵共性与差异；原因；相互影响渗透

Outline

ThesisStatement:

ThisthesisanalysestheculturalsimilaritiesanddifferencebetweenChineseandEnglishbasiccolorwords“Red”,“Green”and“Blue”onthebasisofSapirWolfehypothesisaswellastheBerlinandKaybasiccolortheory,andpointsoutthenecessityandsignificanceofit.Also,thepaperanalyzesthecausesofsimilaritiesanddifferencebetweenthosecolorwordswhichcausesinteractionbetweendifferentculture.

1.Introduction

2.TheoreticalBasis

2.1SapirWolfeHypothesis

2.2BerlinandKay’sTheoryofBasicColorWords

3.CulturalConnotationsStudyonColorWordsbetweenChineseandEnglish

3.1CommonColorWords“Red”,“Green”and“Blue”inChineseandEnglish

3.2CulturalConnotationsSimilaritiesandDifferencebetweenColorWords“Red”,“Green”and“Blue”ofChineseandEnglish

3.2.1ColorWord‘Red’/“红”

3.2.2ColorWord‘Green’/“绿”

3.2.3ColorWord‘Blue’/“蓝”

4.ContrastofCulturalConnotationCausesbetweenChineseandEnglishColorWords

4.1CausesofChineseandEnglishCulturalConnotationSimilarities

4.1.1CulturalPerception

4.1.2CulturalExperience

4.2CausesofChineseandEnglishCulturalConnotationDifference

4.2.1NatureEnvironmentDifference

4.2.2TraditionandCustomsDifference

4.2.3PhilosophicDifference

4.2.4ReligiousViewsDifference

5.Conclusion

TableofContents

1.Introduction1

2.TheoreticalBasis2

2.1SapirWolfeHypothesis3

2.2BerlinandKay’sTheoryofBasicColorWords4

3.CulturalConnotationsStudyonColorWordsbetweenChineseandEnglish4

3.1CommonColorWords“Red”,“Green”and“Blue”inChineseandEnglish5

3.2CulturalConnotationsSimilaritiesandDifferencebetweenColorWords“Red”,“Green”and“Blue”ofChineseandEnglish5

3.2.1ColorWord‘Red’/“红”5

3.2.2ColorWord‘Green’/“绿”6

4.ContrastofCulturalConnotationbetweenChineseandEnglishColorWords8

4.1CausesofChineseandEnglishCulturalConnotationSimilarities8

4.1.1CulturalPerception9

4.1.2CulturalExperience9

4.2CausesofChineseandEnglishCulturalConnotationDifference9

4.2.1NatureEnvironmentDifference10

4.2.2TraditionsandCustomsDifference10

4.2.3PhilosophyDifference10

4.2.4ReligiousViewsDifference11

5.Conclusion12

Bibliography14

1.Introduction

Lifeisfilledwithknowledgeandcanbedescribedwithabundantvocabularytoincreasethevalueofit.However,eventhetalentedlearnerscouldhardlyunderstandallthemeaningofcolorwordswhendescribingmoodorissues.Forexample,Ilearntfrommyhighschoolteacheroncedescribingaladyasfollows:

“Lucyisaverywhitelady.ShewaslookingrathergreentheotherdayandwasinabrownmoodwhenIsawher.Iwishshe’llsoonbeinapinkmoodagain.”Whenclassmatesreadthissentencetheywereconfusedthoughthegrammarwaspreciseandvocabularywassimple.Theprimarycausesisthatwecan’tunderstandwhatthosecolorwordsrepresentunderdifferentculturalbackgrounds.Thus,thesamecolorwordsmayindicatedifferentmeaningsbetweenChineseandEnglishbecauselanguageisoriginatedfromlifeandinfluencedbyculture.“Thereissomethingbehindlanguageandlanguagecannotexitwithoutculture.”（Linguitism:

89）.Thesignificanceofindicatingtheexactcolortodescribeissuesisindispensible.

Therearearound7,000,000differentcolorsexistintheworldbutonlyaround3,000Englishand2,300Chinesecolorwordsaregeneratedtobeknown.Astheamazingdevelopingspeedofnatureandhumansocietyever-growing,itwouldbeevendifficulttocategorizethecolorwordsintoclear-cuttypes.Eventhough,researchershavedividedcolorwordsintotwocategories:

basiccolorandobjectcolor.Inthisessaywejustanalyzethreebasiccolorwords“Red”,“Green”and“Blue”incontrastviews.

SincePlatodidsystematicresearchesoncolorwordsthousandsofyearsago,manyresearchersfellowhispathtocompletethestudy.AccordingtoBerlinandKay’sbasiccolortheory,elevencolorsareconcludedinEnglishofbasiccolorwords,andtheyarewhite,black,blue,orange,purple,pink,green,red,brown,yellowandgrey.BasedonBerlinandKay’stheory,ChineseprofessorYaoXiaopingandLiuDanqinghavedoneadeepresearchonChinesecolorcharactersandtheydividedcolorwordsasfollowcharacters:

黑，白，红，黄，绿，青，紫，粉红，灰，褐，橙.Thereforeitappearselevenbasiccolorwordsandweonlycontrastthreeofthemwhicharered/红，green/绿andblue/蓝.

Therearefivechaptersintheessay.ChapterOneisthegeneralintroductionofthewholeessay.ChapterTwowillfocusontheoreticalbasisfromSapirWhorfhypothesisaswellasBerlinandKay’stheoryoncolorwords.Thefirstassumptionisaimingatstatingtherelationsbetweenlanguageandculturewhichprovidestherealmeaningwhenbasiccolorwordsareusedinaspecificlanguagesituation.Thelaterindicatesthecolorgroupthatdividedscientifically.Threepairsofbasiccolorwords“red/红，green/绿，blue/蓝”willbecontrastedinChapterThreeinEnglishandChineseincommon.Italsomakecontrastofbasiccolorwords’similaritiesanddissimilaritiesinthischapter.ChapterFourindicatesthereasonwhybasiccolorwordsincludesofinitialsimilaritiesanddifferences.Lastbutnotleast,theeffectofcolorwordssymbolizeindailylifeareputforwardinanessentialplace.

2.TheoreticalBasis

Colorwordstudyhasbeencontinuedforalongperiod.Notuntiltheeighteenthcenturydidtwocontrastingphilosophytheoriesaboutthedevelopmentofthecolorsystemofagivenlanguagecomeintobeing.Inthemeanwhile,twoquestionsaboutcolorwordstudywereputforwardedbyProfessorYangYonglinasfollowing:

（1）Isthecolor-codingsystemofalanguagelinguisticallyuniversalandsemanticallyevolutionary?

（2）Isitsomethinglinguisticallyrelativeandsemanticallyculture-determined?

（杨永林20002b:

4）

Therefore,inordertoduewiththetwoquestions,tworelativetheoriesweredevelopedtofullfillthecontrastivestudyofculturalconnotationsofEnglishandChinesebasiccolorwords.TheyareSapir-WhorfhypothesisaswellasBerlin&Kay’stheoryofbasiccolorwords.

2.1SapirWolfeHypothesis

Duringthenineteenthcentury,colorwordsareconsideredtohavethenatureoflinguisticrelativityandsemanticculture-peculiarity.Therestatestwooppositeassumptionthatontheonehand,the“civilized”societyinEuropeacknowledgedmoreoncolorwords’definitionandmeaningsthanthe“primitive”societywhileontheotherhanddisagreed.

However,twosplendidAmericananthropologistsandlinguistEdwardSapirandhisstudentBenjaminLeeWhorfmadegreatprogressonthehypothesesconcerninglanguage,thoughtandculture.Whetherlanguagecouldhelpassistingthemethodofthinkinganddifferentlanguagesmaybeingabletoexpresstheuniquewayofunderstandingtheworldasfollowingtwopointsofthetheory:

（1）Languagemaydetermineourthinkingpatterns.

（2）Similaritiesbetweenlanguagesarerelative,thegreatertheirstructuraldifferentiationis,themorediversetheirconceptualizationoftheworldwillbe.

Infact,duringtotheexaggerationofinfluenceoflanguageonhumanbeings’thoughtandotherways,notmuchlinguistscouldacceptthefirsttheory.Notuntilearly1920stothelate1960sdidthetheoryiswidelyaccepted.

However,theroadtosuccessisalwaysfullofthorns.ThoughSapir-Whorfhypothesismadeag