西南大学本科生课程论文论文题目：An Understanding of “Language-and-Culture,Two Sides of the Same Coin in the Perspective ofIntercultural Communication”课程名称：跨文化交际任课教师：杨杰专业：英语（师范）班级：200级11班学号：222009310011324姓名：王小青2011 年12 月23 日西南大学外国语学院制An Understanding of “Language-and-Culture, Two Sides of the Same Coin in the Perspective ofIntercultural C ommunication”WANG XiaoqingAbstract:As we all know, we express our thoughts by means of language. However, while we using language, we convey culture at the same time. As for color, it’s a part of language, so it including culture, too. There are differences in the use of colors and color words between Chinese and English cultures. The different cultures bring different attitudes toward the same color because of different culture background, they reveal wide connotation of cultures. We should pay attention to observing not only their basic meanings, but also the deep and broad symbolic meanings. The symbolic meanings of color words often have different features in different language cultures. And some of them even have become taboos and adornments since the meanings of the color words are extended and transferred. Meanwhile, the cultural exchanges and the color views have similar phenomenon and coincidence in the languages.Key Words: Color words; cultural differences; symbolic meanings; comparison I. IntroductionColor is an important part of our life. Color words help us to understand the world around, like our sense of taste and smell. The basic color words in English such as red, yellow, white, black, not only express the colors of objective things, but also the obstruct things. The color words have specified semantic meanings in different cultures. Without understanding of them, we will probably run into obstacles or make a fun of ourselves in communication. Therefore learning and grasping the symbolic meanings of color words are important. Good understanding of the symbolic meanings of color words can help us communicate effectively among people from different countries. This paper tries to illustrate the different symbolic meanings of color words in Chinese and English cultures by comparison and analysis of them.II. Color and CultureColor words, in whatever languages, are used for describing different things. The statistics show that there are more than 7 million kinds of colors can be recognized in the nature. However, the color names are very limited in the languages because there are only dozens of colorsexpressed in single-morpheme word. A number of color words are expressed by adding modifiers, for instance, crimson, pale red, apple green, azure, coffee color etc. Color words reflect the different cultural connotations in different languages. People regard color words with special esteem in different countries. We should not only understand their basic meanings, but also pay attention to their deeply symbolic meanings. The symbolic meanings of color words have different features in different cultures.III. Different Meanings of Same Color in Different CulturesA. RedIn Chinese culture, the color of red is popular for special events, holidays and ceremonials. In ancient times, when people got married, the bride always dressed in red, and wore “Hongtouga(红头盖)”. The bridegroom always tied a red ribbon and wore a red flower in the front. And almost everything in the wedding had something to do with red color. Neolithic hunter considered red to be the most important color endowed with life—giving powers and placed red ochre into graves of their deceased. Neolithic cave painters ascribed magic power to the red color. It can be stipulated that they painted animals in red ochre or iron oxide to conjure their fertility. It is usually believed in China that red can against evil influence.Nevertheless, to Westerners, “red” is usually related to danger, war, blood, terror and sensuality. When the traffic lights turn red, it means danger and pause. Red card is widely used to punish players who act badly in sports and games. Scarlet is the color of bright red, yet its connotation meaning is libidinous or flagrant. Up to now, “red light district” in a few Western nations still implies whorehouse.B. WhiteWhite and red are opposite in Chinese culture. White is a basic taboo word that reflects Chinese people abandon and disgust in both material and spiritual aspects. White symbolizes the death and ill omen in Chinese culture. The relative must wear mourning for the death of parents and relatives since ancient times. They worn the white mourning dress, and it is called the funeral. The relatives set up the white mourning hall. And they should hit the white long narrow flag while carrying a coffin to the cemetery.In English culture, the symbolic meanings of white color focus on color itself, such as snow, fresh milk and the color of lily. Westerners think white stands for grace and purity. When a woman wears a white wedding dress, she is a virgin. Sometimes a woman who is getting married for the second time she may not wear pure white. She may wear off-white or even some other color. On Christmas Day white-colored ornaments are seen everywhere in decorating Christmas trees and houses in most Western countries.C. BlackThe color of black has seriously mysterious senses in Chinese culture. It is a kind of serious tone. Its symbolic meaning seems comparatively complicated for the influence of Western culture. On one hand, it symbolizes serious, justice such as black face Bao Zheng in the popular legend,black types of facial make up of Zhang Fei, li Kui in traditional Beijing opera, etc; On other hand, it symbolizes evilly, reactionary, such as vicious person is a black heart, hidden repulsive inside information is “shady deal”, evil backstage manipulator; it shows crime, su ch as do bandit conduct shout “walk the underworld”, do illegal inn of business named the gangster, the violated goods trade is called the black market. Black is also used to name the dirty money that the money is obtained by illegal means.Black is a basic taboo color in Western culture. Black reflects spiritual abandoning and disgust of Westerner. It symbolizes the death, ill omen, and disaster, for example, Black Mass fits fairy Mass, to wear black for her father’s death, black words are unlucky words, the fierce day is a black letter day; black symbolizes the evilness, crime, such as Blackman, a black deed, blackguard,and blackmail; it symbolizes shame, inglorious too, for instances a black eye, a black mark, and black sheep; it symbolizes angry, depressed such as black dog is the depressed mood, the future looks black means prospects are dim, he gave me a black look means he is looking at me in a great rage.D. YellowIn Chinese culture, “yellow”originally represents the colors of the soil. In book《说文》: “Yellow is the color of the earth.”In Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language, yellow is explained as the colors of gold, butter, and ripe lemon. The Yellow Highlands, lying by the Yellow Riverside is one of the most important cradle lands of the Chinese people. It is from Yellow River that the Chinese ancient culture came into being. The ancient Chinese people mainly depended on the land to live and breed from generations to generations. Chinese and English countries use different colors to expre ss “power and honor”.In China, “yellow” is an honorable color. It is always connected with “honor” and “glory”, and it is the symbol of “power” and “lofty”. There are many words such as “Huangpao(黄袍)”, “Huangbang(黄榜)”, “Huangmen(黄门)”in Chinese language.But in English countries, it is “purple” not “yellow” that is usually associated with “high rank” or “imperial” or “power” in particularly. Meanwhile, many of the roofs such as the Imperial Palace, Shrines and royal buildings choseyellow color for decorations. Yellow is generally related to something pornographic in Chinese, such as “黄色电影”, “黄色书刊”, “黄色音乐”and so on. If we translate these phrases into yellow movies, yellow book and yellow music, it will be strange because “yellow”has nothing to do with filthy at all in English culture. We can use pornographic, decadent, trashy, or vulgar for Chinese “黄”. Thereby, “黄色电影”in English we can say pornographic pictures, blue movies; “黄色书刊”filthy books, pornographic books. IV. ConclusionThrough the analysis above, this paper shows that the symbolic meaningsof color words between English and Chinese cultures have divergences; both ofthem have some common features in some aspects. It’s impossible to list a ll the points in colors between western and Chinese culture.All we need to do is to learn the knowledge about colors as much as possible.Notes[1]Palmer, P.R. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.[2] Seidl, J. and McMorde, W. English Idioms and How to Use Them.Oxford University Press, 1978.[3]安俊丽. 黄色彩对汉语词汇的文化影响[J]. 安庆师范学院学报，2002，(9)[4]方梦之. 汉英翻译基础教程[M]．北京：中国对外翻译出版公司，2005[5]陆国强. 英汉和汉英语义结构对比[M]．上海：复旦大学出版社，1999[6]陆谷孙. 英汉大词典[M]．上海：上海译文出版社，1993.[7]蒙兴灿，孔令翠.实用汉英翻译[M]．成都：四川大学出版社，2002.[8]万昌盛. 色彩的困惑——翻译札记[J]．中国翻译，1991，(3).。