王红敏Wang Hongmin
太原市和一中学Taiyuan Heyi Middle School, Shanxi
摘要:由于受民族文化和其他因素的不同，植根于文化土壤中的隐喻在很大程度上受到民族文化的影响。本文以基颜色“红色”为例，首先介绍了红色隐喻研究的理论基础。之后，文章试图通过对红色隐喻进行比较研究，分析跨文化交际中红色隐喻的相似性和差异性，并对产生差异性的原因进行总结分析。旨在使英语学习者更准确的掌握颜色隐喻意义，促进语言学习与交流。
关键词：红色；隐喻；
1. Introduction
People believe, if the language only has two technical terms, they are black and white or dark and light. If added a third color, it must be red. The article mainly talks about the red metaphor in Chinese and English. Metaphor is one of the rhetoric terms and seems to be the most frequently and most importantly used in the speech. As Lackoff and Johnson believe, metaphor is the structure mapping from one domain to another.(Lackoff and Johnson, 1980,89)
2. Connotations of “Red” in English and Chinese
“Red”produces the same or similar connotation both in Chinese and English. It is called original meaning in cognitive linguistics.
2.1 Meanings of Red with similar cultural connotations in English and Chinese
2.1.1 Celebration and happiness
Either in China or western countries,“red” is related to warm, the celebration and happiness. In western red stands for the celebration and happy, such as the phrase” red-letter-day”, it means the commemoration day or happy day.
Compared with western people, Chinese seem to have a stronger love for red. All the dignitaries in the ancient lived in the red-lacquered doors of wealthy homes, which means rich . Besides for the homophonic of “红”and“鸿”that means lucky and successful.
2.1.2 Indignation and shame
In the culture of China and western “red” is used to express indignation, shame or jealousy. In English, the phrase “become red –faces” means to be ashamed and embarrassed. “To see red” refers to “be angry”. “To become red” means that the face turns red because of anger and shame. For example,
The policeman was red with anger for he could not catch the prisoner.
警察因为没抓到犯人而红了脸。
2.2 Meanings of Red with different cultural connotation in English and Chinese
As a matter of the fact, even though some concepts in the two languages seem to be similar in literal meaning, they are quite different still.
In China, there are some phrases with red in Chinese which are related success, good fortune. 红得发紫denotes the person who enjoys great popularity. As a further illustration, we have expression such as 红利(extra divided)，红榜(honor roll).
For western people, red refers to blood, then it produces a kind of prejudice in color, such as red revenge, a red battle, the red rules of tooth and claw.
3. Cognitive Analysis of the Causes of the Differences of the Connotation of Red
Different countries have different religions. The color words can reflect the nature and religion of a society. In Chinese thinking, people may pay more attention to the two forces of Yin and Yang. Yin can be considered as dark, cool and female and sad, while Yang is regarded as light, warm, positive and happy（TaoLi,2006,5-6. In the culture, Chinese people give more love for Yang than Yin.
But for Britain people, because in the story of Bible, the first dragon is fiery dragon, which is the leader of evil, people often related red with violence and danger. That is why, red in English sometimes have the derogatory term.
4. Conclusion
According to the comparison on the denotation of red between English and Chinese, we have a vivid knowledge of red metaphor. At the same time, it will benefit directly with mastering the knowledge in learning, translating and teaching English.
References
Lakoff, G., & Johnson. M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By [M]. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, P68
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2004) [Z]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, P233
Wang Yulong, &Zhang Yu. (2007) English Rhetoric [M]. National Defense Industry Press, P156-P157
陶 丽. (2006). 浅谈红色隐喻[D]. 北京：北京师范大学.
吴月溪. (2008). 汉英红色隐喻比较研究[N]. 高等教育出版社, (12): 230-231.
阎伟静. (2004). 英汉语中的红色对比研究.[N]. 科技信息导报, (8):124.