中英基本颜色词对比研究_英语论文

A Comparative Study on English and Chinese basic Color Terms

摘要

人类生活在一个色彩斑斓的世界里。在人们的日常交流中，各种色彩词汇的运用使沟通对话也更加的形象多彩。但同时我们也不难发现，由于地域、历史、政治、信仰、价值观、审美观、思维方式等多种因素的影响，在跨文化交际时，人们对颜色词汇的应用及理解呈现出其在文化内涵方面的等值性、非对应性甚至零对应性。这就要求我们在跨文化交际时，尤其要考虑到这些颜色词汇在文化内涵方面的非对应性和零对应性，从而尽可能的减少“文化盲点”，避免交际语用失误。

目前国内外针对颜色词汇都进行了大量的研究，但国外研究起步较早。美国民族学家柏林和语言学家凯恩对颜色词汇的研究甚至为中国研究颜色词汇奠定了一定的理论基础。国内对颜色词汇的研究主要侧重于颜色词的翻译和文化对比。

本篇论文主要从中外共同的基本颜色词入手，着重针对红、白、绿、黑四色，并从它们在中外文化内涵方面的共通性和差异性方面进行对比研究。从而能够成功的运用颜色词汇进行跨文化交际，避免交际语用失误。

关键词：基本颜色词; 文化内涵; 跨文化交际；语用失误 

Abstract

Human lives in a colorful world. Every day we come into contact with all sorts of beautiful colors. These colors enrich our life; make it colorful and full of changes. Due to the influence of  geography, history, politics, religion, values, aesthetic view, thinking mode and other factors, the cultural connotation of Chinese color terms are different from that of foreign ones in three different levels: 1) Commonality or Equivalence 2) Difference or Unequivalence 3) Vacancy. A successful cross-cultural communication requires us to take all these three levels into consideration, especially the difference and vacancy factors, so that we can reduce the cultural blind spots and avoid pragmatic failures in communication.

So far, for the study of color terms, a lot of research has been carried on at home and abroad, while the overseas research started earlier. The color terms study of American ethnologists Brent Berlin and linguists Paul Kay even laid a theoretical foundation for the Chinese color terms study. And for the domestic research, it mainly emphasizes on translation and cultural comparison of color terms.

This paper mainly focuses on the common basic color terms in both Chinese and English culture. Through the comparative study of red, white, green and black color terms, we find their commonalities and differences in cultural connotation. Thereby, we can successfully use the color terms in cross-cultural communication and avoid pragmatic failures in communication as possibly as we can.

Key words: Basic Color Terms; Cultural Connotation; Cross-Cultural Communication; Pragmatic Failure