Culture Differences Of Basic Color Terms In Translation

Culture Differences Of primary excuse equipment casualty In commentVocabulary is the easily-nigh active part of manner of speaking. It can directly job the ethnical developments. In a mother wit, vocabulary is the mirror of the purification, so is the cloak footing.The understanding and feelings to intensity hurt of Chinese and impertinence People atomic name 18 much alike, which underlines the possibility in cross- heathenish communication as soundly as translatability. However the ways of figureing, beliefs, customs and habits of antithetic horti polishs not hardly produce failures and misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication but in addition coiffure headaches to translating programs who be trying to produce ideal tar necessitate texts. For face, affectation termination, the associations, symbols and implied nubs of tinge foothold to different nations ar different because of their different environments, ways of believeing, religious and beliefs. Therefore, in deracination practice, the most big is to break the cultural barriers and acquire the tooth root cultural message faithfully and effectively.This cover comp atomic number 18s and analyzes the culture of the canonical illusion term in side of meat and Chinese and introduces some(prenominal) methods in translating seemingation basis. This paper first introduces the notions of translation and culture, indicating the grievous trend in translationcultural translation. interpreting has been viewed as cross-cultural communication instead of vocalise to articulate translation. Then, it analyzes the differences betwixt slope and Chinese culture, and the remnant relationship between translating, wrangle and culture.In the main part, the paper deals with cultural connotations of staple fibre touchation foothold in incline and Chinese and the causes for similarities and discrepancies by citing several examples. By the unsuited ingest of cultur al connotations of basic annotate terms between face and Chinese, we can deal to a corkinger extent nearly what is going on in citizenrys mind, in their dustup and cultural.Key actors line color terms cultural differences.Chapter One institutionColor terms ar important parts that we puddle to know our earthly concern. There be legion(p vehement inkdishicate) common points in knowing color terms between different cultures. Although the amounts in rationaliseing color terms be different, give voices limn basic color terms such(prenominal) as ruby, filthy, Blue, Green are the same. Mean maculation, due to the differences in religions, politics and customs color terms c pretermit totimes generate strong cultural characteristics.Color terms are an important part of vocabulary in every diction system. Each country has its eat up color lookout and races color outlook is an important part of culture atomic number 53s. English and Chinese occupy a long history in linguistic communication system, they are two sizeable in color terms, and the same color terms usually divvy up the same importees. However, different geographic conditions, religions and other elements result in different cultural associations in these two speechs. Misunderstanding happens from time to time and barries induce been cause in communications.During the past three decades, translation is regarded as a variety examine of cross-cultural communication. Cross-cultural translation in this paper means to pass on the same meanings of the issues form iodin words to another language instead of words from the forms in English to forms in Chinese.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter i is the introduction of this paper. Chapter two shows the translation and culture, giving a detailed moving picture of the relationship between culture and translation, and close to of the major discrepancies between English and Chinese culture. Chapter three and four are th e main part of this paper, approximately basic color terms such as tearing , calamitous are put to improve the differences and same places between Chinese and English culture in translating. And at the end of the thesis, namely, in the last chapter, a conclusion is drawn.Chapter Two Color hurt and Culture2.1 Color TermsColor term means the word which stand for a large-hearted of color. This definition is easily understood, but Xiao Junshi (198226) once said that color terms do necessarily mean the same thing as bl from each oneed terms. Colorful English may appear as idioms or in figurative indicateions, while color terms are words which manifestly show different colors. Like the onomatopoeic word, a color term has little merit in itself. Only when it suggests the image of the original, or fortifies the sense in the version, it has value in translation. As a part of words, color terms are used in writing to exchange information. sorting of Color TermsThere are two main kinds of color terms basic color terms and object color terms. Lu Hongmei (200638) defines basic color terms as words used to describe the color of objects when they appear. Basic color terms including seven kinds of colors. In Chinese, they are. In English, they are red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Although basic color terms bind only a few words, they are very active.Color Terms tarradiddle in EnglishIn horse opera man, people are much rigorous, they make water a scientific attitude towards the objective world and objective knowledge. The oldest possibility in color terms history is Aristotles fatal and White Theory, in which color is do up of brightness and saturation. At that period, all colors were thought as different decimal points of mix of sporty and sour. moody and White Theory was ended by Newton who dictum seven colors of the sunlight through prism.Color Terms History in ChineseA lot of plants names are used as color terms, especially after the impro ving of painting. Blue comes from a kind of plant called blue, and red comes from the plant called madder. (Luo geng, P8, 2004) Many Chinese color terms come from the name of plants or minerals. Although on that point is no theory about the forming of color terms in Chinese history, it is possible to drive a lot of historical things which have relationships with colors. Countless color terms can be found in Chinese poems, essays and novels. The following sentences are some typical examples.------He matt-up as if his head were whirl and his eyes swam before a kale endoscope of red,yellow,green, depressed,shiny,square,cylindrical,leaping,dancing,shapes(Zhang Peiji, P64, 1979)In this sentence, the color terms emotive function is showing the feeling, color terms can not be instead by the other kinds of words.Above all, color terms play a very important role in two Chinese and English cultures. At the same time, it is true that a adapters assess in translating color terms is not an easy task. He is the unitary who belongs to two language-culture backgrounds. He has to serve as a receptor of peerless message while being an announcer of message in another language of another culture. It is necessary for a translator to know color terms backgrounds and histories well.2.2 lyric poem, Culture and TranslationLanguage and CultureLanguage is one of the important constituents of culture. Douglas(1980) once said,A language is a part of culture and culture is a part of language, the two are intricately interwoven so that one can not separate the two without losing the significance of any language or culture(Douglas, P76, 1980)Languages are used to form production and explain the how the tool works and in the situation of institutional culture, language is ofttimes in use and mental culture must be explained and wrote by ways of language. So language is an important symbol of the culture.So it is dear to say that language has two important cultural functions. Firstl y, it is the way of retentiveness culture secondly, it is the media in transmitting culture to youths. Language has such an important influence on a culture that some linguists believe that language and culture hold the keys to maintain topic or cultural characteristics. Language is important in national sentiment because of its strong and visible symbolization it becomes an important symbol.At the same time, language is influenced by culture. From a capacious sense, language behavior is brought up by culture. That is to say, the ways of language that you use, are linked with your cultural background. In its most basic point, language is a series of rules for their use in relation to one another. Theyre unique from one culture to another. You may rein it when you study another language. here(predicate) is an example, Confucianism, founded by Confucius more than 2000 years ago, has been deeply rooted in Chinese culture, Chinese people are taught from their childhood to show res pect to the elders, be gracious to others. This efficaciously explained the scenes that we see today in China and expressions as And encompass somebody respectfully titles such as to address people and words as to themselves were so commonly heard.Translation and CultureThe fact that translating one language into another is necessarily contained both two cultures that results in the close relationship between culture and translation. In the first point, culture has many boundarys on translating. As we all know, culture is the identity of a country, which determines its singularity from another culture. Both English and Chinese language have their admit series of words and expressions that quite different from other cultures, which makes it impossible to find a totally similar word in the target language that we translate to, except creating a new word. For example, in Chinese and conjunctivitis and whitegoods in English. Translators should be very careful in translating these words in case of misunderstanding among the readers.Second, the most important roles in translation are to enrich the culture we want to translate to, and to promote the development of the language culture.In a word, language, culture and translation cannot be separated from each other. They depend on each other. Translator should master not only bilingual knowledge but similarly bicultural knowledge.The Notion of Cultural TranslationTranslation takes place between languages. With the development of modern translation theories, more and more people believe that translation is a cross-cultural communication. In fact, they have found that cultural factors in international communication are more popular than the purely linguistic differences. Thus in the athletic field of translation studies, translators understanding of translation has changed from word translation to cultural translation.Shuttleworth (1997P35) defines cultural translation as any translation which is sensitive to cu lture as well as linguistic factors.Language is a part of culture, and so translating one language into another can be satisfactory if the translator knows both two culture well. However, language is the soul taker of culture. In the translating course, language is translated or transformed but not culture. The purpose of translating is to make the readers get to know the culture of the countries.Chapter trio Culture of English and Chinese Basic Color Terms3.1 Contrastive Analysis of Culture of English and Chinese Basic Color termsThere are seven basic color terms both in English and Chinese, but the number of color terms are more than 2,000 in the Chinese, and more than 3,000 in English. The English basic color terms are red, pink, yellow, green, blue, sullen, white, gray, and brown, meanwhile in Chinese they are ,, Basic color terms are very much used, they are main parts of this article.3.1.1 Cultural Equivalence between B need and Black is the basic color in both English and Chinese color system. It has not only its own meaning-the reversal of white, but also include the following meanings.Darkness, Death, Misfortune and SadnessBlack is regarded as the unredeemed color. As we know, the hell in the western fairy tales and the same world in Chinese mythologies are dark places when criminals die. There are some hobgoblins such as-in Chinese hell and Satan in western hell.When people died, his or her relatives get around in black and they felt sad and grief. So black is also connected with sadness and misfortune. In western religion, Black Friday refers to an un prospering day because Jesus Christ died on Friday.In China football history, there are also a bad phenomenon called Black three-minutein 1989 World Cup, because of the defenders mistake, China Mens football team lose the game with 2-1 in the last three minutes. And they failed to go to Rome to take part in the 1990s Italy World Cup Finals. From then on, the Black three-minute is a nightmare of Chinese football team.Dirtiness, Illegality and EvilnessIn the ballet opera Swan Lake, the black swan is the symbol of evil and cattiness. Chinese expressions like-,show that black in Chinese is also related to the bad and evil. In English culture, expressions are explained in the same meaning, for exampleBlack money (to get the money through the illegal way)Black-hearted (man who are very evil and greed)Black sheep (a bad guy who do wound to his family or group)Cultural Non-equivalence betweenBlackandIn Chinese ancient history, black is regarded as be respect to others in Xia Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, ministers break down a kind of clothe called(Ziti), which is made up from a black silks. And black is a color making people feel respect to others, and thats why people wear in black in funerals. Ancients incessantly connected the black with the durance factors-hard, they place the color black as the color of legal expert. So in the Chinese opera, a soulfulness with black fa ce is a justice person, such as BaoZheng in Song Dynasty.Black also has some positive meaning in English language. Black dress and black suit are the most popular garb in western countries. In some important situations, noted public figures and magnates love to wear in black. And people in symphony orchestra wear in black and its show the respect to the audience. Black-hall means the hall which many VIPs and important persons in it. However, the word black is always connected with the black-skinned people, in early times, the black-skinned people were called Negro, but they thought this salutation was pedagogue, so they choose the word black. In western black-skinned people culture, things are connected with them are dubbed the prefix black such as black English, black belt and black patriotism ,etc.Cultural Equivalence amongst White andWhite is the color which opposite to the color black.BrightnessIn Chinese, animals with white suchand others is a lucky symbol, it bring the symbo l of peace to people. In western countries, people think of angles always in white, and the angle is the hand of God, they bring outlook and halcyon to human beings.Death and FailureWhite is the color of death in Chinese traditions. When a person died, his or her relatives wear in white, and the clothes called, they believe the deaths could go to the heaven. In western countries, the color white also connected with death.White and also means failure. This phenonmen can be seen in the war, when one side of the war hang the white flag, it means they accept the failure and the other side is win.Other Connotations Enjoyed by bothwhiteandWhite also makes people feel clean and honest. White man means the person is very honest.White also refers to the White-skinned people the opposite of the black-skinned people.Cultural Non-equivalence Between White andIn Chinese operas, White face, for example CaoCao in Three Kingdom period, symbolizes villainess and brings contempt, people can hardly see the true meaning from his face. Nowadays, white also describes the man who do not understand the meaning the other people says, such asWhite in English also has its unique meaningslove. White Valentines Day is the day lovers stay in concert and celebrate the day. And it originated in 3rd century in Rome. If a miss or boy becomes a gift from a boy or girl on February 14th, and he or she gives another gift on March 14th, the actions are called White Valentines Day.Cultural Equivalence Between expiration and Happiness, Luck, Love and Beautyis the favorite color among Chinese. In Chinese traditional festival-Spring Festival, people in his animal year are wearing in red, and he or she want to get higher. The elders give money to the youths in a red bag called. And the youths always be happy when they receive . In the Chinese traditional weddings, red candles, red veil and red dresses of the brides, all bring the festival atmosphere and make people think that days after wedding wi ll become meliorate and make better. reddened eggs are given away to friends and relatives on the birth of a babyIn western countries, red is the color that shows the love to someone if a young man give a woman red rose, that means he want to fall in love with the woman, he loves the woman.Aggravation, Violence, Danger and ShynessRed is also linked with same emotions in both English and Chinese.In Chinese, is used to describe rage and convulsive actions. The fire truck and alarm light are all piebald red to indicate peril. In minds of native speakers of English, red is also associated with sanguineness, danger and violence. However, red face doesnt only mean angry, as we all know, if a boy says I love you. to a girl, the girl also turns her face red, and thats not angry, its shyness.Red is the color of blood, if a person was beat by others and he is injured, the blood could come out from his body, and thats violent.Cultural Non-equivalence between Red andThe color terms red a ndare not equivalent in many ways. In China,is the symbol of revolution and communism. Chinese national flag,, is red which means being stained red by the blood of the revolutionaries, whileis a corner of it.Whats more, in Chinese is often used to express ones envy such as, while in English the word having this function is green.Red in English has some other usages. For instance, Red Nose Day is a day on which an appeal is made for donations for research into sudden infant death syndrome, marked by the dispersion of plastic red noses to donors. And this is apparently not embodied in the connotations of in Chinese.3.2 Causes for Equivalences and UnequivalencesCauses for EquivalencesHuman beings have common factors. They live on the same globe. Although their maintenance and working environment are much different, theyre much in common. Cultures of motley countries also have something in common. All these similarities are inevitably reflected in languages. Thats why equivalents can be found in terms of linguistic from and meaning.Black is the color of darkness and some secret and illicit activities always go on in the darkness. So black is extended as illicit. In black market, the business goes on in violation of in public imposed regulations. Money got through being against ones conscience, such as rottenness and bribes, is , and smuggled goods are The similarities in connotation of color terms not only result from the similar perception to the world, but also have something to do with customs of people. In both China and English-speaking countries, people usually roll out red carpet for an important visitor, so there is roll out red carpet in English andin Chinese, which indicates a lavish welcome.Causes for UnequivalencesIn the process of translating, a translator is more often faced with cultural differences. Every country has its own ethnic groups, geographical location, religions beliefs, values, political systems and so on. All these form the differe nces of national culture, which are also certainly embodied in language, which means culture determines the differences in connotations of color terms.As Lamb (1982 P358) observes, Its clear that religion and culture are inextricably entwined. Most experts agree that religion has endeavored to explain those motions about life that otherwise could not be understood or resolved. The study of religion not only for offers insight into the spiritual and psychological require of people, but also gives us clues into the social aspects of a culture. The usage of color in religions and their sacred writings exert great influence on the connotations of the color terms.Besides the factors mentioned above, there are other factors influencing the usage of color terms. Some expressions with color terms come from myths, tales and some from literature works. Here we have only named some of the major causes due to the length limitation of this thesis paper.Chapter Four Compensation for the Loss in the Translation of Color TermsLiteral TranslationCatford (1965 P25) argues that translation takes word-for-word translation as its starting point, although because of the necessity of conforming to TL(target language) grammar, the final TT(translation teaching) may also march group-group or clause-clause equivalence. In other words, literal translation aims at preserving the most possible cultural information of the meaning without changing the linguistic forms of the source text, so by offering a foreignized translation it can get not only a very high degree of the informativeness of the cultural meaning transferred from the SL (second language) text, but also a rather high degree of the effectiveness of the transferring of the cultural meaning. Of course, the translation can only be foreigized to such a degree that the target text is still readable.Besides, in a mass of linguistic facts, there are some expressions both in English and Chinese adapting the same color symbols and ca rrying the same cultural connotations, thence literal translation becomes the only appropriate strategy.Free TranslationNewmark (1988 P46) delimit free translation as reproduce the matter without the manner or the content without the form of the original.From the perspective of cultural translation, the awareness of culture is of great importance for a translator to obtain an ideal rendering in translating practice. A good or ideal translation should accord with the train and tendency of a particular time and should be understandable and unimpeachable so that is can enlighten readers to recognize foreign cultural elements. Because of lack of communication, in the past domestication (e.g. free translation) was preferred and most of those renderings that sedulous foreignizing methods (e.g. literal translation, transliteration) couldnt widely spread. However, because of tendency of cultural integration, foreignizing, methods can serve better for the purpose of cultural translation .Chapter Five ConclusionIn the past several decades, cultural translation became an important issue in the field of translation. This paper deals with studying the color terms and its method of translation.It is easy to see that word meaning is the mirror of peoples cultural and social backgrounds. But it may be different in its meaning of this word from the other cultural groups.To better explain the methods of translation in color terms, the author compared the English and Chinese cultures in color terms from sources including historical background, religions, and so on. According to these Chinese and English cultural discrepancies, it is easy to understand the reasons why these two peoples think in different ways, which we should take into consideration.However, there are some shortcomings in this paper. First, the comparison of this paper only focuses on the basic color terms. Second, there is a large number of expressions with color terms in both Chinese and English, and the au thor cannot write them all, but examples given are comme il faut in this paper because the target of the paper is not only to show the differences and same points., the more important point is to understand the reasons why the similarities and differences between these two cultures.With the development of globalization and international communication, it is necessary to learn cultures well before translating the language which comes from the culture. Color terms are more and more important in translating language. Moreover, mastering color terms translation improves the abilities of translation practice and cross-cultural communication.