Abstract: Human lives in a colorful world. Every day we come into contact with all sorts of beautiful colors. These colors enrich our life; make it colorful and full of changes. Due to the influence of  geography, history, politics, religion, values, aesthetic view, thinking mode and other factors, the cultural connotation of Chinese color terms are different from that of foreign ones in three different levels: 1) Commonality or Equivalence 2) Difference or Unequivalence 3) Vacancy. A successful cross-cultural communication requires us to take all these three levels into consideration, especially the difference and vacancy factors, so that we can reduce the cultural blind spots and avoid pragmatic failures in communication.

So far, for the study of color terms, a lot of research has been carried on at home and abroad, while the overseas research started earlier. The color terms study of American ethnologists Brent Berlin and linguists Paul Kay even laid a theoretical foundation for the Chinese color terms study. And for the domestic research, it mainly emphasizes on translation and cultural comparison of color terms.

This paper mainly focuses on the common basic color terms in both Chinese and English culture. Through the comparative study of red, white, green and black color terms, we find their commonalities and differences in cultural connotation. Thereby, we can successfully use the color terms in cross-cultural communication and avoid pragmatic failures in communication as possibly as we can.

Key words: Basic Color Terms; Cultural Connotation; Cross-Cultural Communication; Pragmatic Failure

Contents

Abstract

摘要

Introduction-6

Chapter one a General Introduction to the Current Situation of Color Terms-7

Chapter Two the Cultural Connotation of Four Basic Color Terms-8

2.1 Red-9

2.2 White-10

2.3 Green-11

2.4 Black-12

Chapter Three Pragmatic Failures in Cross-Cultural Communication-13

3.1 Definition of Pragmatic Failure-13

3.2 The types of pragmatic failure-14

3.2.1 Pragmalinguisitic Failure-14

3.2.2 Sociopramatic Failure-15

3.3 The Causes of Pragmatic Failure in Cross-Cultural Communication-15

3.3.1 The negative transfer of mother tongue-15

3.3.2The Difference of cultural background-15

Chapter Four The Methods of Avoiding Pragmatic Failures of Color Terms in Cross-Cultural Communication-16

Conclusion-17

Bibliography-17

Acknowledgements-19