Abstract:Colors are abundant in both Chinese and English, such as black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, etc. Color is an objective and special substantial form. People all can react to color, no matter in emotion or vision. The view and cognition of different national people toward colors are much alike; they also have many common associations in color and color terms. But the associations, symbols and implied meanings of thinking, environments, psychology and religious belief, all this makes the understanding and use of color terms are different in different nations. This article mainly takes “red” for example. Through analysis of the difference between “red” word in Chinese and English, it is to explore its cultural and historical roots. Therefore, it is of practical significance to know the difference between English and Chinese color words and their extended meanings for promoting Chinese-English cultural communication and developing translation practice.
Key words: red; cultural connotation; contrastive study; discrepancy
摘要:英汉两种语言中存在着大量表示颜色的词汇，如黑、白、红、黄、绿、蓝等。颜色是一种客观存在的、特殊的物质形态，人们无论在情感上还是视觉上都会在一定程度上对颜色做出反应。不同的民族对颜色的看法和认识趋于一致，人们对颜色和颜色词所产生的联想意义方面也有许多共同之处。但由于民族风俗、思维方式、地理位置、民族心理、宗教信仰等文化背景的差异，英汉两个民族对各种颜色在视觉上和心理上所产生的联想、象征的意义、蕴含的寓意不尽相同，同中有异，异中有同。这就使得中西方民族在颜色词的具体使用和理解上存在差异。本文主要以“红色”为例，分析其在英汉中的不同联想意义并探寻其文化历史根源，以便更好地了解中西方民族文化的差异，使其对英语学习及对促进中西文化交流和翻译实践有一定的现实指导意义。
关键词：红色；文化内涵；对比研究；差异
