A Comparative Study Of English And Chinese Basic Color Terms

As an unusual group of the lexical system, color terms, compared with other word categories, have their outstanding peculiarities. My thesis is trying to make an analysis on English and Chinese basic color terms by comparing their semantic meanings and culture backgrounds.Chapter One, "Introduction", sets out by pointing out the important role that colors play in people's daily life. This chapter, from historical point of view, makes a survey of colors' emergence. Then it states the relationship between colors and color terms, by which my thesis smoothly comes to the point.Chapter Two, "Theoretic review of English and Chinese Basic Color Terms", puts emphasis on Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's "Basic Color Term" Theory and Chinese "Yin Yang Wu Xing" Theory. In Berlin and Kay's research, it appears that, although different languages encode in their vocabularies different numbers of basic categories, a total universal inventory of exactly eleven basic color categories exists. The eleven basic color categories are white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange and gray. They also found if a language encodes fewer than eleven basic color categories, then there are strict limitations on which categories it may encode. In terms of Chinese "Yin Yang Wu Xing" Theory, the number "Five" is used frequently to explain the origin of everything in the universe and the universality of their variety. Therefore, "Five Colors" were the original basic color terms of China, which showed the influence of "Yin Yang Wu Xing" Theory on Chinese culture. Nowadays Chinese basic color terms include white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple and gray.In Chapter Three, "Semantic Comparison of English and Chinese Basic Color Terms", it analyzes the similarities and differences of English and Chinese basic color terms from two aspects: first from the aspect of associative meanings, then from the aspect of translation. Take "a white lie" as an example, when it is translated into Chinese, there is no equivalent color term for "white". So cultural inequality does exist in translation.Chapter Four, "Cultural comparison of English and Chinese Basic Color Terms", makes another comparative study from the aspects of religion, taboo and politics. The following serves as a good example: The color "yellow" has no derogatory meaning in English while in Chinese "yellow" is always regarded as something filthy, especially related to sex.To sum up, English and Chinese basic color terms have their similarities as well as peculiarities, and the differences between them embody two different cultures, and it is certain that clear understanding of them helps people avoid unnecessary troubles during communication.