英汉颜色词的社会文化内涵解读

An Exploration on the Cultural Implication of English and Chinese Color Words

汉英语言中表示各种色彩的词语都很丰富。我们不仅要注意观察它们的基本意义,更要留心它们的象征意义,因为它们的象征意义在不同民族语言中往往有不同的特点。这种不同文化之间颜色象征意义的差异是由于各自民族的文化历史背景、审美心理等的不同而产生的,是在社会的发展、历史的沉淀中约定俗成的,是一种永久性的文化现象。

Color words are very rich and profound in both Chinese and English. We should pay attention to their symbolic meanings as well as their basic meanings, for their symbolic meanings tend to have different features in different languages and cultures. The differences are caused by different cultural background and aesthetic psychology of different nationalities, and they have been fixed with social and historic development and become an everlasting cultural phenonmen.