【正文】 r. Flashing red lights denote danger or emergency. Stop signs and stop lights are red to get the driver’s attention and alert them to the dangers of the intersection. “Metaphors are sometimes used without users’ being conscious of their metaphorical character” (常宗林 2005: 255). The same phenomenon will appear when we use colour terms. Many associations are grounded so deeply in mon human experience that we seldom pay special attention to them when we use the associative meaning of colour terms. In addition to the perceptual basis, color terms are deeply rooted in their cultural basis. This is well summarized as follows:In other words, what we call “direct physical experience” is never a matter of having a body of a certain sort。 rather, every experience takes place within a vast background of cultural presuppositions… Cultural assumptions, values, and attitudes are not a conceptual overlay which we may or may not place upon experience as we choose. It would be more correct to say that all experience is cultural through and through, that we experience our “world” in such a way that our culture is already present in the very experience itself. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 57)It is known that bullfighters in Spain use a piece of red rag to exasperate bulls to wage a war, for bullfighting is a tradition in western countries and bulls are apt to get angry when they see something red. So people use like a red rag to a bull to express one’s anger. It’s also a colour for danger. The western people relate red to blood. They associate red with violence and danger. On calendars, we can find that holidays are printed in red, while ordinary days are in black. That’s the same in two countries.Also according to Kovecses (2002: 165), one language could borrow something from another. Like 紅燈區(qū), 赤字, they are translations from their English equivalents redlight district, in the red . And the use of red in in the red es from the color of the ink used in keeping accounts. So due to the influence of cognitive accordance of people and the mutual penetration of culture, we have those similarities. Reasons for the semantic differences of red in English and ChineseOn the other hand, people tend to have different views and understanding of the same object because of the diversity of political rules, religious beliefs, ethics and values of different nations. Every nation has its own ethnic psychology. Culture has been a very important source for constructing connotative meanings of colour terms in English and Chinese. Thus, it leads to cultural difference between source language and target language of colour terms, that is to say, the nonequivalence reflected in their connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning, and thematic meaning.Chinese philosophy focuses on emptiness, while western culture pursues entity. Chinese culture pays attention to likeness in nature, while western culture is fastidious about science and preciseness. This kind of cultural characteristic is also reflected in the use of colour terms. For example, Chinese colour term 碧 can be explained as 綠 or 藍(lán). Sometimes, people of different nations use different colour terms to describe the colour of the same objects. For example, brown sugar is translated into 紅糖 in Chinese. This exactly embodies the great importance of red in Chinese culture. In addition, brown sugar is good for one’s health, so it is mended as 紅糖. In fact, the colour of this kind of sugar is closer to brown. Its being called brown sugar in English is more precise. Black tea is translated into 紅茶. In fact, the colour of this kind of tea is closer to black. But we call it 紅茶, matching it with green tea. These two tea names fully embody the language tradition in which Chinese culture is fastidious about symmetric beauty. Thus, we can see that for Chinese, the use of colour terms is apt to be vague, to be opaque；however, for English, the use of colour terms is apt to be precise, to be real. It is the result of cultural difference. Difference in aesthetic habit Chinese people prefer red, while English people prefer white. This kind of difference in aesthetic habit causes the difference in pragmatic meaning. Red is associated with happy occasions, harvest, etc. Because of this, in China, men of letters in ancient times and today prefer to use red to symbolize hospitality, warmth, energy and youth. It can be seen from the following examples:(11)“霜葉紅于二月花”——杜牧(12)“紅杏枝頭春意鬧”——宋祈 (13)“日出江花紅勝火,春來(lái)江水綠如藍(lán)。”——白居易(14)“試問(wèn)卷簾人——卻道海棠依舊。知否，知否？應(yīng)是綠肥紅瘦！”(15)“落紅不是無(wú)情物，化作春泥更護(hù)花?！薄徸哉?In Example(11) and Example(12), two poets use 紅 to describe the colour of leaves and apricots respectively. In Example(13), the poet uses 紅 to symbolize the red flowers near the bank reflected by the first rays of the morning sun. He uses 綠 to symbolize a pool of green water blown by the breeze in spring. Such a vivid metaphor brings the spectacular scenery to us Example(14) means green leaves are fresh but the red flowers are fading. 落紅in Example(15) refers to fallen flowers. The importance the colour terms have in literary works can’t be underestimated. The appropriate usage of colour terms is for more efficient expression of contexts. In ancient Chinese literary works, 紅男綠女 is often used to describe young and beautiful women and handsome men, so what we just need to do is to translate it into gaily dressed men and women.Although red is also used for celebrating events in English, there are still many phrases related to red that are derogatory, such as redhanded (當(dāng)場(chǎng)抓獲), redtape(官僚作風(fēng)), redblooded(狂熱，固執(zhí)), see red(怒不可遏), into the red(每況愈下的經(jīng)營(yíng)狀況), in the red(負(fù)債累累). All these Chinese equivalents have nothing to do with the conceptual meaning of red at all. Red flag, in China, is a revolutionary and positive symbol, but in English, it refers to something that will make you angry. We can see it in to wave a red fla