The Relationship Between Colour Words and Successful Business.doc

毕业论文（设计）The Relationship Between Colour Words and Successful Business1. Introduction12Colour words and culture42.1 The definition of culture42.2 The definition of the colour word52.3 Differences of cultural connotations in colour words62.3.1 The influential elements of different symbolic meanings of colour words62.3.2 The symbolic meanings of colour words102.3.3 Taboo of colour words in various countries123. Colour words and successful business143.1 Analysing the usage of colour words in commercial advertisement143.2 Analysing the usage of colour words in goods packing183.3 Analysing the usage of colour words in sales203.3.1 Colour words appear in clothing business203.3.2 Colour words appear in mobile phone business224. Conclusion23References251. IntroductionColour words, in view of their quantities and pragmatic function, play an important role in contemporary Chinese vocabulary. Especially in rhetoric field, experts are set on studying the meaning of colour words through collecting historical materials and analyzing different languages. “One may state that no serious researcher of colour nomenclature can afford to ignore those far-reaching findings obtained by related sciences. For this reason, a critical review of this correlation, one that is both theoretical and practical, appears to be necessary and important”(杨永林, 2002). The study of colour words can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle. It involves sweater and enduring contributions on the process of achievement, and more than 2,500 years have passed up to now. The history of colour words research is, at the same time, the history of a fierce battle between “cultural determinism” and “linguistic evolutionism”. These two main theories, which have been considered as two basic standing points of colour cognitive research, have been wildly spread. Before the nineteenth century, there was a popular assumption that the colour words system contained some features of linguistic relativity and reflected the cultural determinism, that is, colour words were linguistically relative and semantically culture-specific. This assumption developed from careful researches which associated with Anthropology, Ethnology and Pan-culture in a broad sense. To the middle of nineteenth century, “cultural determinism” and “linguistic relativism” met questioning and challenging. The influence of linguistic relativity and cultural determinism on research into colour words continued to the end of the nineteenth century until it was finally challenged by Magnus publication of his cross-cultural investigation of colour words. It was a milestone of colour words research, which revealed the triumph over language common rule in colour research. Magnuss study substantially changed peoples view of the relationship between colour terminologies and their physiological foundations, and to some extent, predicted the possibility of linguistic universality in colour words. Rivers, who has been considered to be the father of cross-cultural psychology in his time, published his reports which based on a psychological test of native peoples use of colour words. In the late nineteenth century, Leivers made full use of considerable quantities of first-handed materials to proved his logical viewpoint there was a possibility of gradual evolution in colour words system. In the following seventy years, with the rapid development of Anthropology, a group of colour researchers adopted that colour words system is influenced and restrained by culture elements. This evolutionary tradition of colour nomenclature regained its momentum in North America with the publication of Berlin and Kays seminal and now classic work on the subject: Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. On the research of colour words, Chinese scholars are tending to figure out their meanings and semantic function. Amongst famous Chinese scholars, Zhang Peiji is the earliest researcher who sets foot to the systematic study of colour words. In his book English Colour Words and Translation, he discussed the issue on how colour words come from, how they develop, how they form and how they use in a pragmatic sense. Liu Yunquan, a representative of colour researcher, published his academic work Colours in Language, in which he gave out a systematic analysis on Chinese colour words in order to describe a course of colour words development in Chinese history. Yang Yonglin, an outstanding Chinese scholar, is recognised as the most productive researcher who involves years of hard work to make his contribution to the study of colour codability. He is famous for one of his published works A Socio-Cognitive Study of Chinese Students Colour Codability in English which is universally accepted as a major work in colour cognitive field. With extremely large quantities of experimental research and thousands of hundreds of times of checking out his findings, he combines Evolution theory and Relativism theory as a whole and became the first person who brings Chinese language background into colour cognitive study.2Colour words and culture2.1 The definition of cultureCulture is an invisible factor developing along with human history, which is firmly associated with human language. There is something to the notion that culture let us know better about the world and the people around us.The original meaning of “culture” in English referred to land cultivation and plant cultivation, but latter on, it was given a new birth of meaningculture means the growth of human body, the development of spiritual world, and especially indicates the cultivation of arts, moral abilities and talents. In the anthropological sense, culture is any of the customs, worldview, language, kinship system, social organization, and other taken-for-granted day-to-day practices of a people which set that group apart as a distinctive group; it is any aspect of the ideas, communications, or behaviors of a group of people which gives to them a distinctive identity and which is used to organize their internal sense of cohesion and membership.Taylor, an English anthropologist, thought that culture could be considered as a complex whole which included knowledge, believes, art, morals, law, custom, and by any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of a society; it was to all human being around the world.Gordon Marshall further explains that culture is what a people do，or “the total life ways of a people，the social legacy the individual acquires from his group”. It is the way we eat，groom ourselves，celebrate，and mark ours space and position. It is the way things are done (杨永林, 2002). Culture is said to be invisible to those who are immersed in it. Every one around us behaves in a similar fashion，so we do not think about the existence of some large and powerful force acting on us all. But its there and touches all aspects of our life; this constant background force is culture (杨永林, 2002).Kluckhohn, an American anthropologist who gains himself a reputation for “the father of modern culturist”, is in favour of defining culture as a survival model system. The system contains both a dominant character and recessive character; it has a tendency of sharing by the whole group or sharing by a specific group in a certain period.2.2 The definition of the colour wordIt was publicly accepted that the colour word was a symbol of colour. Experts held the idea that colour word was used to identify nature objects, and it was a sub-subject of the language symbolic system. However, when they focused on different studies of colour words, they came to different conclusions. Zhu Yongyi said in 1959 that the colour word in fact was a lexical word to describe objects. Tan Dezi said in 1982 that colour words were words of colour. Huang Dekuan and Yang Xiaoli spoke in a linguistic sense that colour word was nothing but a noun or an adjective to describe different colours. In twentieth century, the study of colour words went deep. In 1995, as Professor Xiao Ke put it, colour was the visual impression caused by the light waves given out or reflected by an object, and this kind of impression which is reflected in language is called colour words. In 1997, Deng Yingling believed that colour words were the lexical words to indicate different colours around the world, such as simple colour words like “red”, “green”, “yellow”, “blue”, etc.2.3 Differences of cultural connotations in colour words2.3.1 The influential elements of different symbolic meanings of colour wordsColour, as we can see, exists in the real world. They paint our village vivid and colourful. Colours are so indispensable that they become an integral part of our daily life, which not only please our eyes but also enable us to clearly describe objects with more distinctive details. Owing to the special relationship between colours and the world we live on, people create colour words. From few to many, the number of colour words is growing, and meanwhile, they are embodied more and more significant meanings. Look back on the course of colour words, there are six causes.The most obvious and important factor is customs and social values. In ancient China, Chinese people worshiped the sun, the moon and the earth. The Chinese superstitions mind was the deep root of colour superstition. Based on Chinese view of the universe and the element theory, colour words were full of mystery and bonded with Chinese culture when they were created. The likes of colour “red” comes from the admiration of the God of sun; colour “white” is considered as a taboo colour because the ancient Chinese people appreciate the Goddess of moon. Gradually, colour superstition became a culture phenomenon. In the contrary, the westerners are addicted to the original of the universe. They used all types of means to discover secrets which were hiding in the vast universe. In the very beginning, they thought that only colour “white” and colour “black” were the true colours which contained national culture and meaning. The former one means clean and elegance, while the latter solemn.The improvement of economy, science and technology of the nation is another cause. An attempt has been made to relate the extent of colour terminology in specific languages with the level of cultural and technical complexity of the societies in which these languages are spoken. There is some reason to believe that communities which show little technological development employ the fewest colour words. e.g., the Jal of New Guinea have words corresponding to dark and light alone. On the other hand, technologically advanced societies have eleven colour words, such as green, blue, yellow, red, brown, black, white, grey, pink, orange, and purple. Societies in intermediate stages have intermediate numbers. For example, the Tiv of Nigeria has three words; the Garo of Assam and the Hanuno of the Philippines have four; and the Burmese have seven (Wardhaugh Ronald. 2000).Besides, peoples colour bias has a certain effect on the use of colour words. In olden times, there was an ancient tribe. Members who lived on the mountain were called “山顶洞人”. They were addicted to “red” so that they would like to use red ornaments and print their houses shining with red in red-letter days. In feudal China, red clothes only appeared in the palace that it was not allowed to wear among the common people. In contemporary age, colour “red” symbolizes good luck and happiness. When a pair of Chinese couple gets married, according to Chinese traditional custom, the bride should wear red clothes, red trousers, and the red scarf. In this moment, “red” is everywhere. The house is set up with tables which are covered by red cloth. Windows are pasted with red words read “double happiness”(双喜). In spring, red couplets called “春联” in Chinese will be pasted on both sides of a door. Furthermore, there is a typical Chinese-own custom that elder people will give “red bags” (红包) as a gift to young generations with the prospect of bringing good luck to the youth. In Chinese culture, the colour word “yellow”, on the one hand, it is a symbol of sacredness, power, and noble; on the other hand, it is considered as the true colour of nation and symbolizes lands and the whole country. “Yellow” is the sublime colour because it is given power by emperors. “Yellow” cloth is used to make with dragon designs (龙袍) for the emperor only. Usually, the emperors order is written on yellow silk or cloth to show his upper status. Besides, Chinese are proud of being the descendants of “Yan Di and Huang Di (or the Yellow Emperor)”. In western culture, colour “blue” is so widely used that it is as common as they look at their counterparts blue eyes. Moreover, the religion affects the symbolic meaning of colour words. In Buddhism, Buddhists admire “yellow” that monks wear well-made yellow clothes which is known as “袈裟”. In Bible, God deliberately impresses colours on our mind so that human may have a foundation to learn in the knowledge of Him. Therefore, Bible is rich with colour words. Take colour white as an example. This white substance represented a deep spiritual lesson that “man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.” The whiteness of milk is associated with the basic principles and teachings of Gods Word. Furthermore, some colour words are cited from classical works and later they are popular used by people. For instance, in the first chapter of the Chinese classic A Dream of Red Mansions, there appears such a sentence.(1) 贾爷.也曾留下话与和尚转达老爷，说：“读书人不在黄道，黑道，总以事理为要。”Mr. Jia asked the monk to tell that scholars are not superstitious about lucky or unlucky days but like to act according to reason.(Xianyi, Yang & Gladys Yang, 2003)In the ancient Chinese superstition, “黄道” means “吉日” (auspicious days), and “黑道” refers to “凶日” (inauspicious days). In traditional Chinese culture, the colour “黄” (yellow) is considered as a symbol of dignity or power; and the nether world is full of darkness and cruelty, so “黑” (black) is used to symbolize evilness, ill omen or death. Evidently, the connotative meanings of “黄” and “黑” in Chinese are quite different from those of “yellow” and “black” in English.In addition, the development of the policy enriches the meaning of colour words. A typical example will perfectly fit to the point. In the period of Culture Revolution, Chinese people created a bunch of “black” words in the process of political struggles within people and the communist party, such as “黑五类” and “黑帮”. Colour “black” was embodied a negative meaning at that moment. In western country, people prefer white to black, and such kind of colour bias also reflects in policy of those countries. For instance, America, the economic giant, paints her House “white” in Washington D.C. Thus, the colour “white” symbols the power of American president. “White Hall” is a street right down the Pakingham Palace in England, which is intense with many government institutions. “White Knight” means a person who devotes himself to the policy reformation or a winner in his or her career.2.3.2 The symbolic meanings of colour wordsColour is symbolism. We say someone who is jealous is “green with envy”. Someone who is sad is said to be “blue”. When we are angry, we see “red”. Colours affect us psychologically. They can stimulate our appetite or suppress it. They can make us happy, excited, angry or sad.Warm ColoursRedRed is one of the most powerful and attention-getting colours. Pure RED is the colour of divine love, of the Holy Spirit, of courage, self-sacrifice, martyrdom, and all the warm impulses that belong to the greathearted everywhere. Red symbolizes passion and fire, love and lust. It has been proven to raise blood pressure and cause perspiration. Red reflects energy and can motivate an individual to take action. It can also symbolize war, violence, blood, and aggression. OrangeOrange is associated with autumn, pumpkins and Halloween. It inherits many of the traits of red, but is less passionate. Orange has been known to stimulate the appetite. As a citrus colour, it can also symbolize health.YellowYellow symbolizes sunshine and warmth. It can mean hope, light and energy. On the other hand, it can mean weakness or illness, or symbolize cowardice.Cool ColoursGreenGreen signifies health and growth (vegetation) and wealth (money). Green symbolizes spring, renewal, fertility good humour and fun; hope and victory over dullness and ignorance; happiness and the gaiety we associate with springtime and youth; it can also mean jealousy or inexperience. BlueBlue is winged Cherubim; the second from the throne of God in the Choir of Angels which symbolizes Gods wisdom. The Blue of the Middle Ages was a pure cobalt, often shading from deep to light, approaching sapphire. It is one of the most calming colours and is associated with the sky and the sea. It is considered to be a “safe” colour and signifies intelligence, reassurance, and trust. Blue has also been known to be an appetite suppressant and can signify depression and sadness and is symbolic of profound meditation, of enduring loyalty, of eternity. PurpleThe combination of red and blue, purple is one of the most intriguing colours and symbolizes creativity. Purple is spiritual and mysterious. Deep purple is associated with royalty and richness while lavender is associated with romance and nostalgia.Neutral ColoursBlackBlack can represent power, elegance, and sophistication, but it can also represent death (Western culture), evil, anger and sadness.WhiteWhite is the colour of serenity and of peace, of purity and of the joy that belongs to the pure in heart; it represents cleanliness, purity, and spirituality. It represents life and marriage in W