关于颜色的习语及其翻译

1、关于颜色的习语及其翻译on english idioms about color and their translationabstract: the cultural differences between chinese and english peoples determine the expression patterns and connotations of the color words. so it affects their translation, which requires the translators to make their translation from t

2、he cultural context factors. during the translation, the translators should take into consideration the national cultures and linguistic characteristics contained in the color words and do their translation on the basis of a full understanding of the cultural background so as to maintain the linguis

3、tic style, linguistic pattern and artistic characteristic of the target language. key words: color idioms; cultural connotations; translation摘 要: 英汉民族存在的文化差异决定了色彩词语表达形式及词义，对翻译也有很多影响。我们要从文化语境所包含的诸多因素出发，分析阐述如何进行色彩词语的英汉翻译。在翻译过程中，译者应充分考虑原色彩词语所包含的民族文化与语言个性，充分理解色彩词语所蕴含的独特的文化意味，尽可能结合原文的文化背景，保持原文的语言风格、语言形式及

4、艺术特色。 关键词：色彩习语; 文化内涵; 翻译contentsi. introduction1ii. background of the present study 2iii. a research on english idioms 3a. the range of english idioms3b. the development of idioms .3c. the origins of english idioms .4iv. english idioms about color 4a. concept of color idioms 4b. color idioms and cul

5、tures .5c. the cultural connotation of color idioms 61. red.6a. the same connotation in chinese and english languages6b. the different connotations in chinese and english languages 62. white7a. the same connotation in chinese and english languages7b. the different connotations in chinese and english

6、 languages.73. black7 the same connotation in chinese and english languages 74. blue8 the different connotations in chinese and english languages.8v. conclusion8works cited9on english idioms about color and their translationi. introductionlanguage is a social phenomenon, and each language stands for

7、 one culture. to some extent, language and culture develop simultaneously as an idea is firmly held that language occupies a very special position in culture when compared with other elements, though language is apart of the parallel of culture in a larger sense. with the development of modern socie

8、ty and the tendency towards globalization, english, as a international language, is gradually becoming a necessity for people of our day. however, when learning english, some native speakers as well as nonnative speakers often express their surprise at the wide use and distribution of english idioms

9、. they are sometimes at a loss to understand what they are reading and hearing because of the use of these idioms. as a result, they may not be able to fully understand the english culture.english is a language particularly rich in idioms-those modes of expression peculiar to a language (of dialect)

10、 that frequently defy logical and grammatical rules. without idioms english would lose much of its variety and humor both in speech and writing while using it properly, people will not only enhance the ability to express all sorts of ideas but also the ability to appreciate culture, which then impro

11、ves the linguistic ability. english idiom relate so closely to english culture that they are like a drop in the ocean of english culture and reflect the significance of english culture.idioms are pervasive. a large part of our everyday linguistic repertoire is formed by idioms. they arise in the nat

12、ural use of natural language. the creation of idioms reflects new way in which individuals construct concepts of the world and convey them vividly. people enjoy idioms for their incisiveness, their frequent wit, their polish, and their savor. familiarity with a wide range of idioms and the ability t

13、o use them appropriately in context are among the distinguish marks of a native-like command of language. color idioms can reflect the deep national colors and their distinct cultural characteristics as well as the different characters of various nations and histories. this brings about the differen

14、t specialties of different nations. all these require the translator clearly and extensively learn about other cultures, beliefs, customs and so on so as to truly convey the value and essence of one country. only in this way, can we effectively promote our cultural communication.ii. background of th

15、e present studydiscourse will normally require a successful blend of conventionalized and original language. fillmore(1979)maintain that formulaic language is far more pervasive than is often realized and that mastery of idioms and other formulae contributes to fluent performance characteristic of t

16、he able native speaker:“the strategy of acquiring formulaic language is central to the learning of language: indeed, it is the step that puts the learner in a position to perform the analysis which is prerequisite to acquisition. formulaic language constitutes the linguistic material on which a larg

17、e part of their (learners) analytical activities could be carried out (fillmore , 640) .” british linguist john sinclair (1991) goes so far as to suggest that “the idiom principle” may well be the basic underlying principle of language production under normal circumstances. drawing on his decades of

18、 investigating vast quantities of naturally occurring language as part of the university of birmingham/collins publishers cobuild project, he puts forward his theory of “the idiom principle” forcefully:“a language user has available to him or her large number of semi-reconstructed phrases that const

19、itute single choices, even though they might appear to be analyzable into segments. to some extent, this may reflect the recurrence of similar situations in human affairs; it may illustrate a natural tendency to economy of effort; or it may be motivated in part by the exigencies of real-time convers

20、ation (sinclair , 110) .” according to sinclair, there is no doubt of the role of idioms in facilitating interaction by, for instance, indicating the speakers/writers attitude, evaluating people or events, directing the discourse, or alluding to shared knowledge or experience.the last few decades ha

21、ve witnessed, alongside a general move towards socio linguistics and pragmatics, an important number of studies turning their attention to idiom representation and processing that cover semantic, structural, functional and cognitive descriptions of idioms. various classes of idioms have been propose

22、d. attitudes and norms are often inextricably bound up with idiomatic expressions. people resort to idioms not only to communicate propositional content but also to reflect upon and express attitudes and emotions. in some cases, idioms function as a kind of euphemism, the use of which makes it more

23、socially acceptable to make comments on events or people than the use of a non-idiomatic expression would be. to learn a cultures idioms, therefore, learners need to be made aware of the context in which the idioms occur. it is very often impossible to infer the meaning of an idiom until it is seen

24、in its immediate context（骆，14-18）. a research on english idiomsthe traditional idiom studies mainly classify and interpret their functions and resources. with the appearance of structural linguistics and transformational linguistics people give a comprehensive linguistic form analysis about the stru

25、cture of vocabulary, the character of semantic meaning and the function of syntax of idioms. currently, the idiom study is the horizontal and vertical aspects.in resent years, the study of english idioms has been developing into its culture, function and pragmatic and so on. from the cultural perspe

26、ctive, people consider english idioms as the products of especially social cultures. they probe the resources of idioms and the social- cultural aspects that are reflected by idioms（彭，13）. a. the range of english idiomslike any other kind of idioms, english idioms consist of set phrases and short sa

27、yings, which are peculiar to the language in question and stem from national and regional culture and ideas, colorful, forcible and thought-provoking. strictly speaking, idioms are expressions that are not readily understandable from their literal meanings of individual constituents (张维友, 2004:228).

28、 in a broad sense, idioms of which most are colloquial may include phrasal verbs, pairs of words, fixed group of words, etc.b. the development of idiomswith the development of peoples social and living circumstances, idioms have also changed since the time that people started to communicate in langu

29、age. some old idioms out-of-date may have been abandoned or modified by people, or have taken on new meanings as time goes by. however, idioms are still colorful, active and steadily used in many aspects by ordinary people even by famous writers in their works.c. the origins of english idiomsidioms

30、are mostly created by diligent laborers, workers, farmers, sailors, etc. idioms have got their roots deep in peoples daily life and daily work. for the idioms users, it is easy and handy to express their thoughts by idioms that they created. most of the idioms are from the literal works, ancient fab

31、les, mythologies, traditional custom, sports, farming, animals characters, cooking, daily life and so on, and then they are accepted by the mass. they almost include every aspect of peoples life and it is the cultural background idioms carry that makes learners feel hard to understand and it is also

32、 the crux of studying idioms.iv. english idioms about color a. concept of color idiomsits well known that the world is composed of matter. during the process of its development, matter gives special effect on light. this makes matter respectively take on various colors. which forms our colorful worl

33、d? being an objective existence, colors are the common sense that all peoples have. based on the research results of the neurophysiology in the 1960s, american linguist p.kay c.k.mcdaniel thinks that human beings have at least 15 fundamental color scopes. one is the main scope, such as black, white,

34、 red, yellow, green and blue. another is the comprehensive scope, that is the dark cold color (black or green or blue), the bright warm color (white or red or yellow), warm color (red or yellow), cold color (green or yellow). another is the derivative scope that is the brown color (blank plus yellow

35、), the purple color (red plus blue), the pink color (red plus yellow) and the grey color (white plus blank). the order of human language color is composed into derivative scope from the comprehensive scope. due to the difference of the observing angle that the chinese and english peoples hold, they

36、choose the different orders of the color scope. for example, the color of the hurt skin is multi-level and dim. english employs the main scope, whose order is black plus blue. while chinese employ the comprehensive or derivative scope. the order of the comprehensive is dark cold color, that is, blac

37、k plus green plus blue. all these colors make dark blue. and the order of the derivative is red plus blue, which makes purple (邵，150) .b. color idioms and culturesthe cognition of human beings towards colors is the most fundamental and direct one. but color words or color idioms are the most distinc

38、t, the direct and the most concrete image pattern that human beings hold. how gorgeous it is that thousands of millions of things have their own distinct color! the diversity of things makes up the diversity of colors. in return the diversity of colors advances the diversifying development of human

39、vocabulary, with the consistent evolution of human thinking; human beings are more and more exposed to other things. so its a great need to obtain both abundant and precious color words to describe our colorful world. consequently the preciously described color words and idioms appear, and they beco

40、me part of human vocabulary that is rich of cultural connotations. due to their differences of geographical environment, social customs and religious beliefs, peoples use the color words in a great different frequency. some usages even oppose each other. this phenomenon fully reflects their values a

41、nd aesthetic conceptions. because of cultures, different peoples may have differences about the classification of colors. however, at the same time, different peoples nowadays have a more and more similar opinion about colors. like chinese, english has a great volume of vocabulary about colors. the

42、importance of color words is not only confined to expressing various specialized color but also lies in their, with other words making up compounding words or customary words, which are called color idioms.the frequent use of color idioms fully reflects the close relations between languages and cult

43、ures. color words are the most culturally connotative one in english vocabulary. besides representing their concrete colors, they also reflect their cultural background. similarly, some color-related idioms have their own connotative meanings apart from representing some specialized colors. color wo

44、rds are entitled with different cultural connotations by different peoples. they contain the whole work and life experience of one people, reflect the customs of the people and their cultural minds and contain the ways of thinking of the people. as a characteristically distinct one in human language

45、, color idioms leave a deep brand on human languages, forming an organic part of human languages. as long as we further study, well find that some colorrelated vocabulary produce lots of color idioms during the process of their development, such as “black and blue, the black sheep of the family” and

46、 so on. take the color words which contain black for example, according to oxford dictionary of current idiomatic english, it contains as many as thirty entities. so, color idioms play an indispensable role in english vocabulary. the uses of english idioms enrich the ways of expression of color voca

47、bulary.c. the cultural connotation of color idiomsbased on the three main factors, english idioms bring about cultural connotations. one is their own physical colors of the color words. another factor is the geographical environment, social customs, ways of thinking and interest of aesthetic of the

48、people. the last factor is association. association refers to that we relate one thing to another. there is no extension of word meanings without the effect of association. in reality, in different contexts, its not the external meaning of some color idiom that affects, but the internal cultural ele

49、ments that make people have associations about some color （张，59）. take the color words for example, we will analyze the diversities of the chinese and english cultural connotation.1. reda. the same connotation in chinese and english languagesin both china and england, red is related to some celebrat

50、ions or happy days. for example, in english, a red letter day means a celebration day or a happy day; roll out the red carpet for somebody represents your welcoming somebody solemnly. in chinese, we have kaimenhong, zouhongyun and mantanghong to represent happy and successful things. b. the differen

51、t connotations in chinese and english languagesin english, red-blooded males represent energetic and active persons. red represents to be in debt or to lose, because people always write down negative numbers with red pens. so come up with these words, such as red figure, red ink, in the red, red bal

52、ance and red-ink entry. sometimes, red is considered as a derogatory term. the west capitalists see the east communism as a monster, so they interpret red as communists.in chinese, we have the color red representing the revolution or communism, such as red army. red flags fluttering represent someon

53、e living under the concern of the communist.2. whitea. the same connotation in chinese and english languageswhite makes people associate with no value and vanity. for example, in english, they have white elephant or white hope. those mean something with on value. in chinese, we have baifei, baida an

54、d so on. all these can be translated into all in vain, which have no association with white.b. the different connotations in chinese and english languagesthe western people regard white as a color of innocence and chastity. when the baby is baptized, the bride is always wearing white on the wedding

55、ceremony. and there are following idioms about white in english-speaking countries: white wedding. western countries usually hold their wedding ceremonies in their garden or at home or in the wedding registration office. when the bride in white holds her wedding ceremony in the church, they call it

56、a white wedding。another example is white lie, which means some words you are told with no harm. 3. blackthe same connotation in chinese and english languagespeople associate black with evil and bad things. for example, in english, black money means the money that is illegally gained and has not been

57、 taxed. black market means the trades that are banned by the government or illegally done. thus they have black market price. in chinese, we have heidian, which means a hotel that kills people and robs the money. also we have heiwo, which means some place where the bad guy hides or somebody does som

58、ething bad.black represents disastrous or unwelcoming people or things. for example, in english black friday refers the financial crises that happened on september 24th,1869 and september 19th, 1873. in chinese, we have black monday or black july representing unlucky days. under the specialized historical and environmental circums