毕业设计论文-a contrastive study on cultural connotations of basic color terms between english and chinese 英语专业.doc

Thesis for Bachelor’s Degree A Contrastive Study on Cultural Connotations of Basic Color Terms between English and Chinese Abstract We live in a colorful world. There are a great variety of color words, or a large number of expressions denoting the sensation of colors used to describe the colorful things in the world. Although differing in their quantities in the color inventory of different languages, basic color terms are important components of almost all the human languages. As a group of cultural-loaded words, basic color terms reflect cultural diversities in the aspects such as minds, customary habits as well as color orientations. English and Chinese, as languages with a long history, are both abundant in basic color terms, and almost all the basic color terms carry their own peculiar connotations resulting from different social cultures, historical processes and geographic conditions. With the deepening of the cross-cultural communication between China and the western world, it has been realized that basic color terms form an area in which misunderstanding in cross-cultural communication seems inevitable because of the diversities of their cultural connotations. Therefore, a contrastive study on cultural connotations of basic color terms between English and Chinese is of significance. Language is the carrier and reflection of culture, and color terms is one part of language. By the contrastive study of cultural connotations of basic color terms between English and Chinese, we can know more about what is going on in people’s mind, in their language and culture. This thesis consists of four parts. Part one is the general introduction in which it points out what is discussed in the thesis. Part two define “basic color terms” and introduce the relationship between color terms and culture; besides, it also discusses the necessity of writing this thesis Part three serves as the main body of this thesis, in which it gives some examples about color. Part four i