The Cultural Connotations of Color Words and Their Translation 颜色词汇的内涵和翻译.doc

A The Cultural Connotations of Color Words and Their Translation 颜色词汇的内涵和翻译 Applied linguistic  摘 要 人类生活在一个神奇的色彩世界里，颜色渗透到我们生活的各个领域。用来表示这些颜色的颜色词数不胜数。颜色词具有丰富的文化内涵。翻译是文化交流的产物，是文化习俗演变的见证。因此，对中西方颜色词的内涵和翻译进行较为系统的对比研究是具有重要意义的。本文从奈达的功能对等翻译理论的角度出发，集中分析了中西方颜色词的文化内涵与翻译的关系并提出了几种有效的翻译 Abstract We live in a colorful world. There are a great variety of color words denoting and describing the colorful things in the world. Color words have rich cultural connotations. Translation is a product of cultural exchanges, and a witness to cultural exchanges. Therefore, it is of significance to have a comparative study on the cultural connotations and the translation of color words between English and Chinese. This paper focuses on color words translation from functional equivalence theory of Engene Albert Nida and proposes some effective translation strategies. Keywords: culture; functional equivalence; color word 1 Introduction 1.1 Relevant background Color, an important part of the world, influences people’s life and works through various channels. Whenever we turn on TV, read a newspaper or a magazine, go shopping or search online, we can find ourselves immersed in the vast sea of color. With the development of society and the frequent communication of culture, this influence will continue to grow. In our everyday life we are inevitably confronted with various kinds of colors and thus need various kinds of words to describe them. Color words that are used to describe the color of all kinds of things have different cultural connotations in different languages. Color words are common yet special words in both English and Chinese, for, except that they can be used to refer to specific color, they have so much semantic meaning to indicate the speaker’s mind, his emotion as well as his attitude towards the thing or the person he is talking about. The color people see are predetermined by what their cultures prepare them