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1、Literature Review On the Translation of EnglishColour WordsLanguage is a kind of tool for people to communicate with each other and is also a very importantpart of the culture. Different languages are restricted by various national culture reflecting theirown cultural content. Colour is closely rela
2、ted to our daily life with abundant culture connotationwhich is a crucial object for language culture and translation. “Colour word” indicates the wordwhich is used to stand for a kind of colour. This definition is well known throughout the word but“colour words do not necessarily mean the same thin
3、g as colourful terms. Colourful English mayappear as idioms or in figurative expressions while colour words are words which simply showdifferent colours. Like the onomatopoeic word a colour word has little merit in itself. Only whenit suggests the image of the original or fortifies the sense in the
4、version it has value intranslation.”. Xiao Junshi P173 1982 Obviously as a part of words colour terms are used inwriting to transmit information. In physics it stands for the colour reflected by objects. Color words are used frequently in the translation of English and Chinese. We use some basicword
5、s to convey the meaning of the color words. Because of the differences of customs culturehistory geography etc the personality becomes obvious.Color is a objective phenomena so peoples awareness on color has something in common. Peoplefrom different culture have their own way to communicate to think
6、 and to behave. The words toexpress the colors are allocated different features and cultural connotation which show greatcultural differences.My thesis will focus on the practice of the translation of English color words. In order to promotethe development of the multi-cultural society and cross-cul
7、tural communication it is significant tounderstand and grasp colour terms and their functions in the cultural transfer. This thesis targetingat improving translation proficiency and promoting cross-cultural communication makes a carefulanalysis of colour terms including the definition the history in
8、 English and Chinese thetranslation difficulties and the translation techniques.The study on the translation of English color words has a long history. Many scholars have madedeep research on the color words and generally form their own theories which have been acceptedby the translation field. Thes
9、e research includes the research on the basic color words color wordsand color concepts the translation and the pragmatic meaning of color words the social andcultural connotation of color words etc. These books or articles have given very detailedexplanation on the color words. It is also mentioned
10、 in many books about translation. Howeverfrom all these books most scholars emphize on the way of translating them.Given to most of the books on the translation of English colour words the scholars have found outsome common ways to translate these words.The first is literal translation. We use this
11、way when we can find the equivalent words in both theChinese and the English. White house 白宫 red figure 赤字.The second way is transliteration. That means when you want to translate you have to understandthe usage and its cultural connotation and know clearly the real meaning symbolic meaning anddeepe
12、r meaning. Meanwhile you have to ignore the original meaning of the color words andtranslate the words according to the text.You look blue today. Whats wrong with you你今天看起来闷闷不乐，你怎么了！ （blue 在英语中有忧郁的，沮丧的意思）The third way is to add or odd the words. To better translate the original text sometimes we hav
13、eto add or odd the color words to make the translation perfect.The smoke made him cough. He coughed harshly his face lit like a tomato.烟使他呛起来。他难受地咳着，脸胀得像番茄一样红The forth way is explanation.Different color words have their own special meaning .Only if you explain them properly can the reader truly gras
14、p them.Everybody says she is the White Boned Demon an evil spirit who often took the guise of acharming woman in the novel Pilgrimage to the West.人人都说她是个白骨精.These are the four ways which we often use to translate the color words. When we translate wecan use the ways accordingly to make the best tran
15、slation.Through the forming of colour terms in China colour terms originate from peoples daily lives. Alot of plants names are used as colour terms especially after the improving of painting dying andceramics. “Blue comes from a kind of plant called blue and red comes from the plant calledmadder”. L
16、uo geng P8 2004 Many Chinese colour terms come from the name of plants orminerals. Although there is no theory about the forming of colour terms in Chinese history it ispossible to learn a lot of historical things which have relationships with colours. Countless colourterms can be found in Chinese p
17、oems essays and novels. The following instances are some typicalexamples.The English color words were embodied with abundant cultural connatation and obvious nationalfeatures. Accordingly their meaning is spreaded. The eight basic color words have many matches.In certain back ground the color words
18、dont represent their original meaning any more.zhangLili 2009Nowadays many scholars start to study the contrast meaning of the color words. The color wordshave completely different meaning in different cultural background. These theories give a lot helpfor translating color words. 红色happiness a fest
19、ival dayRed violence anger being short of money黄色filthy filthy thingsYellow timid shy mean白色wed mourning apparel or terrorWhite wedding garment or elegance黑色death bad crime or evilBlack dignity depression bad蓝色quiet pleasant lightheadedBlue heavy hearted filthy绿色marriage failureGreen jealous short o
20、f knowledgeCulture is a very important factor in the translation for color words. There are many study at homeand abroad. They study the phenomena in different ways and from different aspects.In west countries colour terms are popular in fields like philosophy physics psychology art andso on.The old
21、est theory in colour terms history is Aristotles Black and White Theory in whichcolour is made up of hue luminosity and saturation. At that period all colors were thought asdifferent degrees of mix of white and black. Black and White Theory was ended by Newton whosaw seven colors of the sunlight thr
22、ough prism.Other theories appeared at the same time such as Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and CognitiveLinguistics. In spite of the relationship between these theories they all admitted colour termsimportant position in English. “Different nations have different cultures and take the different colours as s
23、pecial”. Lu HogmeiP 134 2006 A well-known legend Wang An-shi a great poet scholar of the Song DynastyA.D.960-1269 was once traveling in a remote part of china and he saw a poem written by ayoung author. Wang An-shi understood one couple of the poem which reads:A moon is singing in the skyAnd a yello
24、w dog lies in the flower.He assumed that there must be a mistake in the poem so he quickly took out his writing brush andcorrected the lines as the following:The moon is shinning in the skyAnd a yellow dog lies under the flowers.Wang An-shi corrected the lines so that they could be read more sensibl
25、y and he then showed hiscorrections to his friends living in the locality. He soon found out however that his “corrections”had been quite mistaken for the word which he had interpreted as “The moon” did not reallymean “moon” in the local language but referred to a bird in the area. Similarly the ter
26、m for“yellow dog” in the original poem was really the name of a type of insect.Wang An-shi had made two mistakes. Firstly he did not check the meaning of such words in thelocal dialect secondly he was perhaps too anxious to make poetry completely logical andreasonable. But the fact is that poetry of
27、ten does seem illogical and anomalous.As a part of vocabulary colour terms have different cultural connotations in two differentlanguages. It is certain that colour is related to the history. Chinese term “黄” has many symbolicmeanings in traditional Chinese culture. “黄” as the honorable color can on
28、ly be used in animperial family.Above all if we want to translate the color words accurately the most important thing we shouldkeep in mind is to know more about the culture. Personally the translation definitely do notdevelopment itself instead it is developing with the economy culture any aspect o
29、f the society.To translate the best article we should put the theory into practice. “people in different nationshave the same association of the same objects colour”. Zhang Peiji P106 1999 For example“雪” and “snow” have the same meaning of purity. The relationship between countries is closerand they
30、 have more chances to communicate with each other. Different culture will melt togetherand influence each other. Because of that it is more easier for us to understand the meaning ofcolor words in different culture.References:1Din Jin and Eugene A. Nida.On Translation M. 北京:中国对外翻译出版公司，1984 2Nida.A.E
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