A Japanese-Chinese Comparison Of Cognition About Color Metaphor

Japanese and Chinese belong to different language systems, but both of them have quite abundant words, owning to the advocacy and favoritism to the nature of the Japanese and Chinese people since the ancient times, there are a lot of words which signify colors in them, the rich connotation and greatly strengthened constitutional capability of these words are hardly seen in all the languages. some words of them(for example:red, black, white, blue, yellow and so on) have well-developed constitutional capability, these color words and others can constitute some new words, in the process of constituting the new words, because of people’s association, abstraction and sublimation, these color words in the proverb, the idiom and the daily-use vocabulary not only represent the color, but are entrusted with some special meanings, and it is the metaphor meanings which this essay intents to research. Grasping these words can make us understand the essence of the color metaphor more really, vividly, accurately, comprehensively, understand the inner link between the color words and the national culture, and enrich the content of the language culture research.There are numerable books which study on the color words of Japanese and Chinese specially in china and Japan, and the numbers of articles discussing them in particular is also in huge amount. As for the research of Japanese color words, Japan mainly focused on the origin of the color words, historical changes, the color words in the literary works, the classification of the color words, and the types of the color words while China mainly dealt with the color words characteristics(lexical category, nomenclature, language classification) of Japanese, the esthetic consciousness of Japan, the number of basic color words, although some of them discussed the metaphor meanings of Japanese color words in particular, most of them place the key point in the connection of the color words and the culture however very few of them analyze color words from cognition perspective; On the research of Chinese color word research, Japan mostly emphasized the origin of the color words, nomenclature and the establishment process, symbolic significance, while China mainly focused on the classification of Chinese color words, generating process, the connection between color words and culture, the fuzziness and the equivocal phenomena of the color words, color metaphor cognition; As for the comparison of Japanese-Chinese color words, the author of the thesis collected several dozens of papers written by many Japanese and the domestic scholar who compared the color hobby, abstain, the classification, the derivation mechanism, translated mutuality of Japanese and Chinese, in the aspect of color words semantic, there are a lot of works studied on the similarities and differences of culture connotation as well as the reason of forming it between Japanese and Chinese from the cultural perspective after the21st century, but lacked the support of systematic cognition theory.In other words, the color metaphor cognition research of the scholars both of the two countries lacks the support of the cognition theory and the explanation of the color metaphor cognition mechanism, in addition, although there are many articles dealt with the figurative meaning, the individuality, the general character of color words, it lacks of systematical and careful summary as well as comprehensive induction to the characteristics and the reasons of the color metaphor cognition. Based on inducing and analyzing the research of Japanese and Chinese comprehensively, the author of the thesis proposed her own viewpoint from the color words cognition and the color metaphorization cognition mechanism. And the author of the thesis analyzed the metaphor meanings of the color words in the proverb, the idiom and everyday vocabularies, in the foundation of the research of the predecessors, the author of the thesis analyzed the overall character, the individuality and the reasons of the metaphor cognition more carefully and systematically. In addition, on the premise of collecting massive materials, the author of the thesis put forword her own opinion to the metaphor cognition characteristics from three aspects(the fuzziness of basic color words and the metaphor cognition as well as four aspects of reasons of it, the dual cognition functions of the color metaphor cognition and the reason of it, the color metaphor cognition homoplasy and the reason of it).The author of the thesis carried on the discussion of color metaphor cognition from the following four aspects:Firstly, The previous study on color words and the existing problems:①the research of Japanese color words②the research of Chinese color words research③the comparison of Japanese-Chinese color words④the summary of the research about Japanese and Chinese color words. Secondly, The summary of the research about cognition of color metaphor:①about metaphor②about cognition of color metaphor (the concept of color metaphor, cognition of color, cognition formation mechanism of color metaphorization). Thirdly, Examples about the comparison of cognition on color metaphor:①the comparison of the color metaphor meanings in the proverb②the comparison of the color metaphor meanings in the four-character idiom③the comparison of the color metaphor meanings in everyday vocabularies. Fourthly, The results of the comparison and the reasons of them:①the overall character, the individuality of the color words metaphor and the outline of the reasons②t6he characteristics of color cognition and their reasons.