【正文】 unctions of English color words ...................................................................................... 4 Indicating behavioural features and emotional states .................................................. 4 Indicating social or political nature.............................................................................. 6 from English color words into Chinese . ......................................................... 7 Translation principles to be observed........................................................................... 7 Translation skills to be adopted.................................................................................... 9 5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 10 Works cited...........................................................................................................................11 On English Color Words and Their Translation into Chinese 1 On English Color Words and Their Translation into Chinese Guangdong University of Foreign Studies Zhu Chuike Tutor: Professor Zhou Ruiqi 1. Introduction “Color is a kind of visible quality that objects have, produced by rays of light of different wavelengths being reflected by them”(Oxford 267). It could be found in every corner of human environment. It is the ponent of totality of human beings’ perceptional experience to the external world, so naturally it forms the eternal topic of each nation. In fact , color was originally a kind of abstract concept and sense perception, and with the development of civilization, human beings break such visual images into many segments and add marks to them, and these marks are called language. Thus color bees the concrete thing made up with the separate links. The connection between color and language is a great progress in the human history. It has deepened the culture of the whole world, helped to promote the munication among different nations and strengthened the magic of language. English color words are one of the treasures of English language. They have the universals with the color words of other languages, while maintaining their own peculiarities. In this paper, we will discuss English color words from three aspects: different expressions, habitual usages and functions, and their translation into Chinese. 2. Different ways of expressing color in English Nature bestows on us the magnificent sevencolor spectrum including red, orange, yellow, green, black, blue and purple. With the creation of human wisdom, such seven colors have expanded into many colors whose number is not clear now. So it is necessary for English learners to pay attention to the ways of expressing color in English. But first how many types of color words are there in English? There are two kinds of English color words: basic color words and material color words. The former was originally used to express the colors of things, such as white, black, and gray, etc. The latter are large in number, ing from the names of some material objects or natural phenomena, such as raven (black), olive (light green), amber (light yellow), and so on. Both kinds of color terms are important in expressing colors in English. Expressing basic color words On English Color Words and Their Translation into Chinese 2 There are four ways of expressing of light colors. One of the way of expressin light colors is made up of only a word, for example, azure, cerulean, glaucous, tan, hazel, filemot, maple, opaline, sulphureous, rose, viridity, etc. Light color can also be expressed by a bination of an adjective and a color word, for example, light yellow, light blue, pale gray, etc. In the third way to express light color, the bination of a color word and the suffixes such as – ish , y, or –scent is adopted, for example: blueish (bluish), yellowish, greenish, reddish, purplish, violescent, viridescent, iridescent, etc. While one or two words appear pale in expressing color, phrases are adopted, for example, with a tincture of red (with a little red), vivid green. Besides the above light color words, there are some dark color words. Some of them are expressed by only one word, for example: crimson, petunia, mulberry, mauve, luteous, puce, etc. Sometimes “deep”or “dark” can be added to indicate dark colors with another color word, for example, deep red, deep green, dark brown, etc. Dark colors can also be expressed by bining two color words to indicate only a kind of color, for example, bluegreen, blueblack, indigoblue, etc. Besides the above expressions, color words can express other plex color concepts with many other adjectives, for example, in order to express the vulgar and gaudy color the basic color words can be placed after “staring”, thus “staring red” is formed. In order to suggest that there is a kind of changeable light, the word “iridescent” is added before color words. For example, English people always use “iridescent blue” to describe the color of peacock’s feather. The sea also has such a changeable light, so “iridescent blue” can be used to describe the color of the surface of the sea. Similarly, the word “l(fā)ush” is usually used together with the color word “green” to suggest “bright green”。 or “flaming” or “burning” with “red”to indicate “bright red”, etc. Expressing more than one colors One way to express more than one colors is by using only one word, for example: motley, multicoloured. A second way is by putting the word “and” between two color words to indicate two colors, for example: black and white, bla