crossThe Pragmatic Functions and Cultural Differences of Color Words

The Pragmatic Functions and Cultural Differences of Color Words

【Abstract】Color relates to people very closely with the development ofsociety and culture people’ s understanding of color is not confided to the visualcharacteristics of color itself besides people give color cultural connotation andactual meanings. In language the unique glamour that the color words demonstratemakes people regard them with special esteem.Color words describe colors of naturewith different cultural implications. They have unique linguistic functions andsymbolic connotations. Colors play an indispensable part in our life and it’s aneffective way to learn the different culture.There is an increase in mis-understandingand communicative barriers because of frequent cross-cultural communication.Chinese and English color words possess different cultural meanings and connotationdue to the difference in customs and habits history and traditions religions andbeliefs geographic locations national psychology and ways of thinking.Thus it’s easy to make mistakes on understanding and comprehension.The methods used inthe research procedure are like this collect some representative color words bothfrom Chinese and English and take them as samples then make a comparisonbetween cultural connotations.According to the comparison make a summary aboutthe differences of color words between China and England. This thesis brings adiscussion of cultural differences between English and Chinese color words.Colorwords in learning English is very important. It can help us t make a betterunderstanding of the culture difference of both nations and achieve the effectivecross-culture co mmunicatio n.

【Key words】 co lor cultural connotation cultural differences

1.Intro d uc t io n

Nowadays we live in a colorful wor1 d——green trees red flowers blue seaand so on-colors make things vivid and give human beings inspiration.Human beginto use color words to express invisible and abstract feelings.Color is closely related toour daily life with abundant culture connotation which is a crucial object forlanguage culture and translation.“Color word”indicates the word which is used tostand for a kind of color.Color word is an essential part of language and cultureimp lic at io ns.

When we learn a new word we tend to look for its meaning in the word itself.Yetin addition to its dictionary meanings the same word may stir up differentassociations in people because of cultural differences. In our daily life color wordsare the common illustrations of the cultural differences in language use. In Chineseand English cultures color words are in the same way influenced by cultures andused widely in people’ s daily life.2.Relationship between color and culture