Understanding meaningThe associative meaning of colors Abstract: Conceptual meaning and associative meaning are the two main kinds of meaning, in which the former refers to the central part concerning the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes while the second one refers to the mental connections to explain its use. It’s very hard to understand the associative meaning because it is affected by many factors like, cultural, social, ideological etc. take color as an example, in different culture it has different meaning.Key words: associative meaning, factors affecting meaning, color1 types of meaningG.. Leech(1985: 13-26) divided “meaning”into two categories: conceptual meaning and associative meaning . The conceptual meaning is also called logical meaning, which is the central part，concerning the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes. The associative meaning includes connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning, which plays an important role in daily communication. Only have a better understanding of it can we have a better communication with other people.2 characteristics of associative meaning2.1 instability:associative meaning is not the central part of the meaning. Rather, it is something attached to it. it will be different for different people in different occasion. it is also affected by a lot of factors like, nationality, race, ethnic, religion, class, occupation, aesthetic point of view even personal experience. for example, home, for many people, means “ comfort, quietness and freedom”. As the saying goes: “east or west, home is best.”. However, for some couples who have unhappy marriages or children who are always scolded by parents, home means “quarrel, confinement like a prison”. Also for the same New York, it has different associative meaning. Some people worship it as a heaven while others will hate it as if it’s a heal. Like the journalist Caskie Stinnett wrote in his essay Farewell, My unlovely:“The sad aspect of my departure was that there was so little sadness connected with it (New York), and after ten years it seemed to me that I should have looked back with some slight mistiness in my eyes. A lot ofliterature has been written on this subject---- the disenchanted New York—and I have read much of it, but none of the cases seems to fit precisely my feeling about the city………..it is city of indifference, and that is the problem. I found I could give indifference in return”( college English)For the author, New York, where he had been in for more than ten years, didn’t bring him any special feeling but indifference. Thus, here New York is an cold and indifferent city .the associative meaning is from the writer’s own experience.2.2 Cultural—related: culture can be said the way people live .it’s a mixture of the material life and the spiritual life. Languages are deep rooted in culture and greatly influenced by culture. Thus language will reflect the culture of the society. Colors and animals always have different associative meaning in Chinese and western cultures. for example, dragon, dog and red.2.3 Inequalities between the east and the west. As we know, every speech community has its own way of thinking, custom, and religion and so on, which constitutes the cultural difference. But the difference doesn’t only lie in the meaning but also in ideas or value system. Lado (1957.71) said: “there are such cases that you can find the meaning in one language but can’t in another.” Speakers of each language, under the influence of its culture , has his own system of associative meaning, making it difficult to find equivalents of the same meaning in two languages.3 functions of associative meaningThe conceptual meaning of words is the foundation on which other meanings stand. However, as we know, words still have other meanings which have a lot of functions to make our conversation vivid except informative. The functions of the associative meaning are3.1 supplement: By using the associative meaning, the fact can be reflected more clearly and objectively. For example, both “green power”and “the power of money” are negative expressions about money. But “green power”(the U S dollar is green) can indicate the attitude of satire and making fun .3.2 adjustment. Through associative meaning, the writer can imply what he wants to say rather than speak it out directly. In English, we can hear “developing countries”instead of “backward countries”, in which “developing has a positive attitude”although the two expressions refer to the same.3.3 covering. Associative meaning can hide the negative aspect of words. “tap phone”and “bug”will give us a bad impression. So later we have the word “sutech”--- a compound of “technical” and “surveillance”, which sounds nobler.3.4 alteration. In some cases, speakers use one expression to mean another. In the white house, for example, security men will ask: “Where is the package?”to ask where the president is for security reason. Here, president is altered by package. Another example, lucky dog in western country means lucky guy while in Chinese dog means something totally different.4. Understanding “color” in different culturesIn human being’s languages, “color” is the carrier of their value system, tradition, and culture. Each community has its own understanding of the meaning of “color”. in different cultures, the same color will have different meaning.4.1 Red. In Chinese, red color is related to happiness, excitement, you can see red lanterns and red coat on festivals. And also red means prosperity and success, people usually say someone “ zou hong” and “ hong li” which means profit or bonus. “red”also mean “progress and revolution”such as “red army”---the communist troops in 1930s and “red flag” and “red guard”. However in western countries, red mostly has negative meaning. It is associated with “blood, cruelty, violence, warning”. So there are such expressions like: “red hand” which means hands with blood, “ red revenge” , “ red light district” and “ red alert”. Red in Chinese culture also means shy while in western culture it means angry4.2 White Both in Chinese tradition and western tradition, white shares the meaning of “purity”and “innocence”. However, in China, white mostly is associated with death and bad omen .people wear white coat on funerals. And it also means witty foolish and failure. we can hear “ white flag”, “bai mang huo” which means in vain. In western countries, it means purity, like: white spirit and white hand. the bride wear white dress on wedding ceremony.4.3Yellow In Chinese culture, yellow is the monopoly of the emperor .everything related to the emperor is yellow. His costume, announcement and the palace in which he lived we panted into yellow. Like “ huang pao” which means yellow coat. In the west, yellow means betray and coward like yellow—levered, yellow dog. Moreover in modern Chinese yellow indicates pornographic, trash, filthy or vulgar. We often hear the terms as “ huang se shu ”“huangse video”. which means unhealthy filthy books.4.4 Green In English ,green of reminds people of envy while in Chinese we use red . there are such expressions like, green with envy, green—eyed. Green in English also means lack of experience, a green hand, a green horn. Rather in Chinese green stands for vigorous and energetic. For example, “a green old age” is to refer to an old but strong man. “ to remain green forever” means stay young forever. And now with thedevelopment of science technology, green means environment---friendly and not contaminated like “green eggs”, “green pork” and “green grocer”.4.5 Other colors: blue in English means depression like “in a blue mood”but Chinese doesn’t have such meaning. Purple both means noble like “be born in the purple” or “marrying the purple”From the examples above, we can see there are great differences in the associative meaning of colors between Chinese culture and western culture. Thus, it’s of tremendous importance to master them and use them skillfully in the right circumstances.5 approaches to improve understanding associative meaning5.1 know more about the cultures of English—speaking countries when learning English, including its history, custom, tradition etc.5.2 read more. Through reading, we can accumulate enough experience about the differences of some words. And it can foster the “feeling” of language.5.3 listen to the authentic materials from the native speakers, through which readers can detect the tiny difference between two different cultures.6 ConclusionThe associative meaning is one of the obstacles in language learning. As Zhu Guangqian put it: “the first and foremost difficulty in translation is the associative meaning……..you can’t find the answer from the dictionary but it matters a lot for literature.”So for language learners, it’s of paramountl importance to have a better understanding of the foreign culture and its background knowledge.Reference1.Hach, E and Brown V ocabulary, semantics, and language education.Cambridge University. ( 1995)2.邓炎昌，刘润清《语言与文化》，外语教育与研究出版社（1989）3.杰弗里利奇，《语义学》李瑞华，王彤福等译，上海外语教育出版社（1987）4.吴友富.英汉动物词汇用法词典「M」上海外语教育出版社（1998）。