【Abstract】 All people live in the same material world, an(6)
2013-06-16 01:04
导读：4.2 Perception Although the physical mechanism of perception to all people is the same, the information we get from the object world is interpreted and evaluated by our brains, which may be influenced
4.2 Perception
Although the physical mechanism of perception to all people is the same, the information we get from the object world is interpreted and evaluated by our brains, which may be influenced by the past experiences. Culture provides us with a perceptual lens that greatly influences how we interpret and evaluate what we receive from the outside world. Under different cultural backgrounds, different color words are needed to modify words even with the same reference in both English and Chinese, and this is because people speaking the two languages are possibly different in their color orientation. For example,
(1) "The white dress" in English and "白衣" in Chinese are different. The former is usually worn in the western wedding that indicates something jubilant and pure. While the latter refers to people who wear it in the funerals implying death, or refers to the common or illiterate people who is no official ranked.
(2) “Another example is "红茶", which is expressed "black tea" in English. The reason is the speakers of Chinese and English perceive the physical world differently. The Chinese people pay more attention to the red color of the water, whereas the Englishmen put their eyes on the black color of the tea when it is dry.”[15]
(3) "红旗" and "red flag" have opposite connotation owing to the different perception. "红旗", the flag of the Communist Party of China, is the symbol of China. And it also refers to the sample with good spirit. However, "a red flag" in English implies something dangerous which people should avoid, something like "red light".
These examples all show the differences in perception. Meanwhile, we should realize that although some color terms look similar in their conceptual meanings, their connotations are different due to the different cultural contexts.
4.3 Philosophy
As we know, the world does not only consist of physical world, but also psychological world. However, the latter one really influences the cross-cultural communication. In the long river of history, the Chinese has its own philosophical ideas, such as the idea of Supreme Ultimate. Another important one is what we mentioned in Chapter Two——"Five Elements", which says the universe is consisted of five elements——metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The Five Lords, five elements, five colors (white, green, black, red and yellow), four seasons are related. Colors are used as the representatives of the directions. Five colors are used as the symbols of east, west, center, south and north respectively. Five colors also stand for the five elements: white for metal, green for wood, black for water, red for fire, and yellow for earth. In addition, colors are also used to represent the four seasons: green for spring, red for summer, white for autumn, and black for winter. These are also the reasons why white has the meaning of death, and red stands for happiness.
（科教范文网 lw.nseaC.Com编辑发布） 4.4 Religion
Religion and culture are inextricably entwined. Religion is also the most important factor affecting the culture and cross-cultural communication. Most experts agree that religion has endeavored to explain those motions about life that otherwise could not be understood or resolved. Religion deals with the life and death in nature, the creation of the universe, the origin of groups in the society, the relationship with each other, and the relation of human beings to nature. The usages of colors in religion exert great influence on the meaning of the color terms. Such as red and "红". Red is related to blood rather than fire and sun to western people, especially Christians. The westerners are interested in universe, and have a strong sense of religion. So they are less superstitious than Chinese. According to Bible, the story about Adam and Eve mentioned in Chapter Two shows the reason why red implies blood and dangers in the western countries. In addition, there was a verse saying "红豆生南国，春来发几枝". Here "红豆" is a love token in China, but in English, a red bean is a symbol for stupidity. This meaning derives from the Bible, in which Essau sold his right as the first born son to his younger brother Jacob just for red bean stew.
4.5 Other Causes
Besides those factors mentioned above, there are other factors influencing the usage of color terms. For examples, some expressions come from myths or novels. “In Bible, in Revelation there is a jezebel riding on a scarlet animal, who dresses in scarlet. Therefore, in the western literature, scarlet refers to being lascivious.”[16] In Chinese, Wang Shipu in his "The Romance of West Chamber" created a character—— a girl called "红娘". Because she helped the two lovers ——Yingying and Zhangsheng unite and marry. Later, "红娘" refers to the match makers in marriage. However, in English "red lady" does not have the same meaning, which refers to a prostitute. Moreover, "white" in "white elephant" derives from a historical story mentioned in Chapter Two.
