The Contrastive analysis of Chinese and English Color Words—Red.doc

The Contrastive analysis of Chinese and English Color WordsRed Abstract We live in a colourful world,and colour words play an important role in our daily life and can not be ignored by human beings.However,due to the different cultral backgrouds,human environment history etc. they have different meanings.This paper will focus on analyzing and contrast one color termred of Chinese and English languages.Then it will explore the similarities and differences in the use of it in English and Chinese.Key Words Red Chinese English symbolic Color words translation摘要 我们居住的世界色彩丰富，颜色词在我们日常生活中起着很重要的的作用，不能被人类忽视。然而，由于文化背景、人类历史、环境的不同，颜色词就有不同的含义。这篇文章集中分析和对比红色在中英两种语言中的异同。关键词 红色 中文 英语 象征的 颜色词 翻译 1. Red has the same symbolic meaning in Chinese and English.As a warm color,it gives people the same psychological feeling,such as representing positive attitude,passion or energy;or making people thrill or excitement or the happy atmosphere.The same symbolic meanings are the following aspects.1.1. It is a symbol of festival,happiness,fame and prosperity etc. No matter what in English-speaking countries and in China,red is always related with ceremonies feativals or other happy things.From the ancient times,we Chinese people especially love red such as high officials and nobles like wearing red suits,using red carriages or wagons and gates.In addition,Spring Festival is the Chinese traditional festival.In the course of it, to give a happy and prosperous atmosphere of the Festival,every family will paste on doors a spring couplet written on red paper, hang up red lanterns,fire red fire-crackers and the red paper containing money as a gift to children.In this festival,we can see the red decorations all around.And in ancient times,the bride and bridegroom must be in red and the brides head is covered with a red veil.What is more,the doors as well as the head of the bed must post double red “囍”. In China“双喜”is either written in red or written on a piece of red paper to symbolize en event of special joy ,such as a wedding or opening a business.“红喜事”specifically refers to a wedding;“披红挂彩”is a traidtional way to celebrate an event of happiness. Recently,some words concerning red in China are popular to symbol fame and prosperity,like in “开门红”，the red colour is symbolic of good fortune.In our country,red also is a aesthetic color. In Chinese famous book-A Dream of Red Mansion,some characters wear red clothes,such as Jia Baoyu is in red narrow cuff in the shape of a horse's hoof，Fang Guan is in crabapple red coat and so on. In English,red symbolize festive things as well.we can find such expressions as a red letter day ,paint the town red and the red carpet .“A red letter day”refers to “a day specially looked forward to or remembered,when something remarkable and usually pleasuable will happen or happened”;as in “My father said the day I was born was a red letter day” .This expression is from calendars that have holidays printed in red and other days printed in black.”To paint the town red”means “to enjoy a lively boisterous time in public places ,often attracting the notice of or causing some disturbance to others”,as in “they spent too much money painting the gown red,and one or two of them got themselves locked up and had to be bailed out the next morning”. “The red carpet”is a symbol of the kind of courtesy or deference shown to persons of high station,as in “They needn't expect to be given the red carpet treatment,this is a factory ,not a country club”. Moreover,English countries also use red to express the fortune and prosperity.This phenomenon mainly reflcted in stock market.In the world stock markets,red represents rising and the red triangle stands for the signal of buying the stock.1.2. It is symbolize alert and danger.In chromatics,red is regarded as a warm color which is intense and vivid.It will stimulate the retina and directly influence peoples psychology.Such as in a red surroundings,the pulse of people will speed up;blood presure will gradually increase and mood will be easily excited and impulse. According to the scientific research,color will affect the brain wave and it reacts quickly to red as a signal of alert.Therefore,red always warns people in daily life like “red alert ( 台风,空袭) 紧急警报” “Red notice-红色通缉令” “a red adventure story-一个令人紧张的冒险故事”“a red flag-危险信号”, “红牌”which means“a red card that is given to the people who break the traffic rules as a punishment”etc.both in English speaking countries and in China.For example,the red light in the cross road that is a sign of stop attracts peoples attention to the surrounding vehicles and their own satety; And we often find that in China and western countries some dangerous consignments will be pasted red labels to alert people to be careful.After teachers look over all the students papers,they will mark figures less than sixty in red.Furthermore,in ecnomics,red represents loss or deficit. “Running a business in the red” means “running it at a loss ”.This expression came from the colour of the ink used in keeping accounts:figures indicating loss are custmarly written in red；red in other expressions like “red ink - 赤字”;“be in red- 出现亏损”;“be out of the red-出现盈利”;“red figure（赤字）”；“red-ink entry（赤字分录）”；“red balance（赤字差额）”all show this meaning. 1.3. Red is also associated with certain emotions in both English and Chinese .In English to become red faced or her face turned red shows embarrassment or shyness,as“脸红”does in Chinese.In the sentence “You said that l am very good. ls my face red?”means “你说我很好，真使我难为情了。”But some English expressions involving the colour red may not be so readily understood by Chinese . “See red” “wave a red flag” “red rag”etc. are associated with anger or excitement.“See red” means“to get extremely angry”, as in “It is just that I see red when I think anyone is trying to muscle in on my property”.”Waving a red flag” means  “doing something that could cause quick anger in other people”, as in “The mere mention of his hated cousin is name was like waving a red flag in front of him”.And”red rag”conveys roughly the same meaning as“waving a red flag”,as in “The mere mention of that incident is a red rag to him”. These three expressions may have some bearing on bullfingting in which the bullfighter constantly waves a piece of red rag or something to tease the bull.There are two other expressions such as“red with anger-气得面红耳赤”“Like a red rag to a bull-惹人生气，惹人恼火”.1.4. Both in English and Chinese,red emblems love.In peoples opinion,love is holy and represnts happiness. Like the English predominant poet,Robert Burns,who wrote a famous poetry called “My Love Is a Red,Red Rose”(我的爱人是朵红红的玫瑰).A Chinese poet Wang Weis poetry lovesickness which once a poetry to give away to his friend expressing the missing between friends,gradually has been becoming a love poetry.Afterwards,the image of jumby bean or love pea of his poetry is for illustrating love because of its flaming color and tough fruit.1.5. We all know that a persons health is related with his or her skin color.Therefore we use some color words to reflect it，especially red.It is a symbol of health.Not only in Chinese but also in English,red can also describe ones healthy body and their face.As people believe, healthy human beings have the healthy skin color.So if we see a sentence like “His face is as red as a rose”,we can translate it as “他红光满面”;as in “Red blooded” ,it means “精力充沛的”.1.6. Besides the positive meanings of red,it also contains negative meanings.In both languages,it has the pornographic illusions.In Hawthornes book “the Scarlet Letter(红字)”,the letter A is a sign of insult or humiliation.Like “red light district”is a euphemism known to the public to mark a erotic place.According to the history evidence,it is firstly used in the west city of Kansas State in America.In ancient China,people use “红杏出墙” to show a women is unfaithful to ones husband.Furthermore,people describe the man who is unfaithful to his wife as “倚红偎翠”.Both two expressions reflect the immoral things,we as well can use red to indicate profligacy.As in “a red waste of youth”presents young peoples profligant life.Red has the depreciative meaning in other phrases,like in “red tape”. This expression came from lawyers and government officials former pracice of keeping their papers and records in bundles tied with red tape.Gradually it refers to the cumbersome procedures or the bureaucratism.2. Symbolic meaning is an expansion of the color terms,it tightly connects with the social background,history,culture etc.The form of the symbolic meaning of color is affected by political elements,peoples love and human environment.2.1. Language is a part of the society and to some extent,it has the class character.Therefore,the color words also contains this feature.Although red has symbolize the revolution both in English and Chinese,it stands for different emotion.In China,red represents the positive revolution and symbolize progress，Such as “red army-红军” “red flag-红旗”“red political power-红色首都”“red guard-红色根据地”.We can discover that our national emblem is red;all decorations in the Communist Partys meetings are related with red.Shortly,in China,red is a symbol of perserving revolutionary spirits and the strong national ethos.On the basis of the positive meaning of red,there is an organization whose name is associated with red,that is the Red Cross.There are so many kind of communities,for instance国际红十字会!(International Red Cross 或 IRC); 中国红十字会( Chinese Red Cross); 香港红十字会(HongKong Red Cross).Red in these names stands for saving peoples life.While in English,as they believe in God,red symbolize the disasters or miseries to Gesus.Therefore,when they see red,they will connect it with danger violent or blood.The blood here is not very good.Like they call communist party as red army,virtually expressing an dangerous sign.Another example is “Red Army Faction - 红军军团(前西德一恐怖集团)”.The word“Red”with a capital“R”,is often used as a synonym for a communist ,usually in a deroagtory sense.For example,the English expression Reds under the bed refers to communists or leftwing activists.As above has referred,Red also stands for violent or violent revolution,as in the phrases “red hot political campaign 激烈的政治运动” “a red revolution 赤色革命” “red activities 左派激进运动” “the red rules of tooth and claw 残杀和暴力统治”all show this meaning.Moreover English people will connect red with blood,as in “red hands- 沾满鲜血的双手” “red revenge-血腥复仇” “a red battle-血战”.3.The translation of red between the two languages sometimes is identical,others is different.It mainly depends on each countries specialties.We should more careful about the word red during the translation in case of making ourselves a joke.3.1.In English and Chinese cultures,Sometimes,red is used as its basic meaning.And with the more communication with each other people can learn more about each other,so sometimes we can translate it directly.For instance,“红包”can be translated “red pockets”.Because with the development of China,its international status has been improved and more Chinese traditional festivals are known to the world.Finally,”红包” need not translate like “cash wrapped up in red papers.”Other expressions such as red army can be translated as “红军”;red guard is “红卫兵”,red tie is “红领带”“血 红- blood red “红酒-red wine” and so on.3.2.Due to the social and cultural environments restrictions,the symbolic meaning of red always is not identical,so we can not translate directly.For example,if we translate “红颜” as “red face”,the foreigners will feel confused.In fact,the expression means beautiful girl.Since the ancient times,we orally call “媒婆” as “红娘”.If people dont know the cultural background of it,they may think of it as “red woman”.As a matter of fact,it is a misunderstanding. “红娘”means“go-between or match-maker”.Because he or she should communicate not only with the man but with the woman to make them be husband and wife.In China,if we suppose that a person get “红眼病”，it doesnt imply the person get a disaese,but it signifies he or she is jealous of somebody or something. It is a similar to “green eyed”.While in English,it is just a pink-eye disease.The following examples are the same condition as this expressions:“红榜-honor roll/board” “红利- dividend” “红包-bonus” “红人- a favourite with sb. in power ” “红尘-human society” “看破红尘- to see through the vanity of world”“红运-good luck” “开门红-to make a good beginning” “女红-meddle work”.In English,this phenomenon exists as well.Some phrases are not as we think.Such as “red ruin”,it does not mean the ruin is red,but the fire(火灾); “red cherring”implies the meaning of peripheral affairs (无关紧要的话题)；“red eye”is the cheap whisky(廉价的威士忌酒).And some other examples are followed: “red ball-特快列车” “red-neck-乡巴佬/美国南部农民”“red skin-北美印第安人的贬称”.If we do not know these expressions background,we can not understand them.3.3. Color words themselves are a little vague and special.It is not very easy to translate.For instance,Chinese word “红糖” in English is “brown sugar”.Visually,red and brown are a little similar to each other.There is no clear bound to them.When Chinese believe the sugur is red,while English people suppose it is brown.Let us see another example: “红茶” is tranlated “black tea” in English.For English think its colour is black,while Chinese assume it is red.Many phrases or words containing “红” in China,but when they are translated in English,we can not see the corresponding word “red”.Next we see some color words concerned with red in China and its translations: 微红ruddy 褐红sorrel 粉红pink 洋红carmine 深红cardinal 水红bright pink 鲜红cerise Some other examples: as in “红得发紫”,although it contains “红”and “紫”，actually it means enjoying great popular;Chinese word “红宝石” in English is “ruby”;and “彩霞”in English is “red sky”. Conclusion On the whole,the color words “red” is widely used in our daily life.In addition to its basic meaning,it has more symbolic meanings.Most of its meanings are not known to us.This phenomenon is affected by the culture history and human environment or the peoples psychology ect.The two nations have similarities and differences, therefore the usage of word “red” also have identical meanings and different ideas.If we dont learn their cultural backgrouds,history or social environment,we will make mistakes and make ourselves a joke.References1 John I. Saeed. SemanticsM.外语与研究出版社 布莱克韦尔出版社 2000.2.邓炎昌,刘润清.语言与文化英汉语言文化对比M.北京:外语教学与语言研究出版2004.3.陆谷孙.英汉大词典 M .上海译文出版社.1993.4.刘云泉.色彩 色彩词与社会文化心理J.语文导报 1998 6-7 .5.李瑞华.英汉语言文化对比研究M.上海:上海外语教育出版社,19976.伍铁平.模糊语言学M.上海:上海外语教育出版社,1999.7.彭秋荣.英汉颜色词的文化内涵及其翻译J.中国科技翻译 2001 (2).