2. Literature Review

Translation is more than the conversion between languages; it is the communication between cultures. We must translate such color words from the cultural perspective, and choose the appropriate translation methods. As a translator, we must have a profound understand of the broad cultural context of English and Chinese before we esteem translating as a familiar work with ease. Then, we can make a really good translation.

For centuries, researches on color words have never been stopped. A lot of experts and scholars have been committing themselves to the research of color words. In 1969, two linguists of US, DR. Paul Kay and DR. Brent Berlin did a comparatives study of the color words from nearly 100 languages in the world. Then, they put forward the theory of basic color terms. Besides, many Chinese scholars also carried on intensive and profound reaches on color words. In terms of cultural connotation of color words’ comparative analysis in a cross-cultural background, there are also a lot of excellent works, and some of them are as follows: Cultural Context and Language Translation, Bao Huinan discussed how to determine translation method from the semantic contrast of color words.  Yao Xiaoping gives a summary evaluation on Kay and Berlin’s basic color words in the Context of the Comments on Basic Theories of Color Words. At the same time, Zhang Peiji’s book English Sound and Color Words fully discussed the characters, use and translation of the color words.