Color is both a general concept which interrelates with other concepts and a category which encompasses various subcategories. Chinese and English are of different language systems which result in the potential differences in language cognition. The present research aims to reveal the differences and similarities of the same concept in different cultures like English and Chinese by comparing color as a concept and a category between English and Chinese on the basis of the Historical Thesaurus of Oxford English Dictionary .
In discussing cognitive differences in different languages like Chinese and English, color is often regarded as the window and the starting point for the comparison, including color categorization and color concept. Color categorization has aroused lots of interest among linguists, as every language has color terms which are often used to categorize colors. According to Berlin and Kay’s Basic Color Theory, there are seven stages of color evolution, and they categorize English as a language of Stage VII with 11 basic color terms and Chinese or Mandarin as a language of Stage V with 6 basic color terms. But they also note that the case of Chinese basic color terms is problematic as to color terms like grey, pink, blue, green and brown as they admit more data for Chinese terms in their future research (Berlin & Kay, 1969: p. 42).
Firstly, color is looked up in The Historical Thesaurus of Oxford English Dictionary (hereafter HTOED) as a concept, aiming to see its interrelations with other concepts. Secondly, lexicographic comparison of the term color as well as its derivative forms in different languages is searched for more information of color conceptualization which lays the foundation for color models in Chinese and English.
Though color is a feature of matters in the world, we may conceptualize colors into other concepts. The HTOED is organized in terms of concepts and shows the historical development of concepts. And the concepts are listed in a hierarchical manner. There are altogether three general concepts: the world (01), the mind (02) and the society (03). The world is further divided into seventeen sub-concepts, among which color (01.10.09) is arranged as a subsidiary concept to matter (01.10). The mind entails seven sub-concepts: Mental Capacity (02.01), Attention and judgment (02.02), Goodness and badness (02.03), Emotion (02.04), Will (02.05), Possession (02.06) and Language (02.07). And the society includes thirteen sub-concepts, such as Society and the community (03.01), Inhabiting and dwelling (03.02), Armed hostility (03.03), Authority (03.04), Law (03.05), Morality (03.06), Education (03.07), Faith (03.08), communication (03.09), Travel and travelling (03.10), Occupation and work (03.11), Trade and finance (03.12) and Leisure (03.13), as shown below.
01 The world
01.01 The earth 01.02 Life (01.02.01 Source/principle of life 01.02.02 Biology 01.02.03 The body 01.02.04 Death) 01.03 Health and disease 01.04 People 01.05 Animals 01.06 Plants 01.07 Food and drink 01.08 Textiles and clothing 01.09 Physical sensation 01.10 Matter (01.10.01 Alchemy 01.10.02 Chemistry 01.10.03 Properties of materials 01.10.04 Constitution of matter 01.10.05 Liquid 01.10.06 Gas 01.10.07 Physics 01.10.08 Light 01.10.09 Colour 01.10.10 Condition of matter) 01.11 Existence and causation 01.12 Space 01.13 Time 01.14 Movement 01.15 Action/operation 01.16 Relative properties 01.17 The supernatural
02 The mind
02.01 Mental Capacity 02.02 Attention and judgment 02.03 Goodness and badness 02.04 Emotion 02.05 Will 02.06 Possession 02.07 Language
03 The society
03.01 Society and the community 03.02 Inhabiting and dwelling 03.03 Armed hostility 03.04 Authority 03.05 Law 03.06 Morality 03.07 Education 03.08 Faith 03.09 Communication 03.10 Travel and travelling 03.11 Occupation and work 03.12 Trade and finance 03.13 Leisure1
Taking the word color as a key word via the search engine, we can get a total of 43 results:
01.02.03.09.06 n. The body::Complexion color (1297-1634)
01.02.03.09.06.05|01 n. The body::Redness::with health color (a1300-)
01.02.03.09.06.05|01 vi. The body::Redness::blush color (1721/1800-1755 Dict. +1787-)
01.02.03.24.03.02|04 n. The body::Brain::faculties of color (1840-)
01.04.06.02|01 n. Ethnicities::Division by physical peculiarities::racial characteristic color (1796-)
01.10.07.05.04.07|11 n. Physics::Quark::property giving strong interaction color (1973-)
01.09.09.02|01.21 n. Hearing/noise::Thing heard::sound quality of sound color (1866-)
01.10.09 n. Color color (1398-)
01.10.09|01 n. Color::a color color (c1290-)
01.10.09|25 n. Color::heraldic tincture color (c1450 Scots+1486-)
01.10.09.03 vt. Color color (c1325-)
01.10.09.03.04 n. Color::coloring matter color (1580-)
01.10.09.05 vi. Change color color (1667-)
01.10.09.07.06.03|02.01 n. Color::Blue coloring matter::blue pigment::specific ultramarine blue/color (1698-)
01.11.01.05.03|01 vt. Exist in/be situated in::Introduce/bring something in::infuse color (1835-)
01.16.02 n. Kind/sort color (1600-)
02.01.10.02.02|01 n. Intelligibility::Meaning of linguistic unit::shade of color (1657-1826)
02.01.12.08.07.03.03|03 n. Knowledge::Duping, making a fool of::gullible person, dupe color (1719)
02.01.12.08.07.07|01 vt. Know, be aware of::Pretend, stimulate, feign::lay claim to, personate color (a1502-a1655+1726Dict.)
02.01.12.08.07.07.01 n. Knowledge::Semblance, outward show color (1297-1863)
02.01.12.08.07.07.01 vt. Know, be aware of::Present speciously color (1377-1862)
02.01.12.08.07.07.01|08.01n. Knowledge::Semblance, outward show::specious quality::statement exhibiting color (1429-1818)
02.01.12.08.08 vt. Know, be aware of::Misrepresent color (1393-)
02.02.06.01.03 vt. Test::Modify, qualify color (1835-)
02.04.01.04.02 n. Aspects of Emotion::Quality appealing to emotion/imagination color (1938-)
02.04.01.07|04.01 vi. Manifest itself::change color::be/become red with emotion color (1721-1755 Dict. +1787-)
02.05.06|02.06 n. Motivation::specious motive/pretext::motive:: alleged/allegeable motive/excuse color (c1380-1724)
02.07.04.03.01.02|09 n. Linguistic::Vowel::qualities of color (1934-1948)
03.05.12.06. 02|13.08 n. Administration of justice::Pleading::a pleading/ plea:: false plea color (1607-1824)
03.05. 15|08 n. Legal right:: Apparent right color (1531-Law)
03.06.01.02.01.01|05 vt. Behove/be the duty of::Excuse (a person/fault):: extenuate color (1377-1862)
03.09.04.07.01.13|04 n. Indication::Heraldic tincture::color color (c1450-)
03.09.08.10.01|04 n. Prining::Arrangement/appearance of printed matter::qualities of print color (1808-)
03.13.03.02.01|06 n. The Arts::Musical sound::timber/quality color (1866-)
03.13.03.02.06.01 n. The Arts::Expression color (1597+1887-)
03.13.03.03.04.04.01|02 n. The Arts::Art of coloring::general effect/scheme color (1661-)
03.13.03.03.05.01|09 n. The Arts::Engraving::representation of color color (1784-)
03.13.03.03.10|02 adj. Pertaining to the Arts::Pertaining to photography::color color (1872-)
03.13.03.04.05.08 vt. The Arts::Embellish color (c1300-)
03.13.03.04.07.04.06|03 n. The Arts::Fiction::a work of fiction color (1509-)
03.13.04.02|04 n. Sport::Player/sportsman::at college/university color (1955-)
From the results, it is clear to see that though color is listed as among the first batch of general concepts, it is closely associated with other concepts, related with the three layers of concepts such as concepts of the world (01)—Life (01.02), People (01.04), Physical sensation (01.09), Matter (01.10), Existence and causation (01.11), concepts of the mind (02) including Mental Capacity (02.01), Attention and judgment (02.02), Emotion (02.04), Will (02.05), Language (02.07), and concepts of the society (03) like Law (03.05), Morality (03.06), Communication (03.09), and Leisure (03.13). The interrelation between color and other concepts can be shown in
Viewed from the HTOED, the color concept is listed as a sub-concept of matter (01.10), which is subsidiary to the world (01). Color terms usually co-occur with words of other sub-concepts of the world (01), metaphorically referring to other sub-concepts of the mind (02) and the society (03). It lists 10 basic colors as sub-concepts of Color (01.10.9): white/whiteness (01.10.09.07.01), black/blackness (01.10.09.07.02), red/redness (01.10.09.07.03), green/greenness (01.10.09.07.04), yellow/yellowness (01.10.09.07.05), blue/blueness (01.10.09.07.06), brown/ brownness (01.10.09.07.07), grey/greyness (01.10.09.07.08), purple/purpleness (01.10.09.07.09), orange (01.10.09.07.10).
And each color is semantically related with sub-concepts of the three general concepts—the World (01), the Mind (02) and the Society (03)—in
In the case of Chinese color terms, because HTOED is English-language anchored, the concepts related with color terms in Chinese are abstracted on the basis of HTOED, as shown in
And a comparison of related concepts with colors in Chinese and English in HTOED is made by referring to two influential dictionaries of native such as LDOCE and CCD languages and the result is shown in
Of course, there are cultural differences still to be seen. In Chinese white and red are more metaphorical than those in English. And as to green and yellow, Chinese and English have strikingly different conceptualizations. But the greatest difference lies in the conceptualization of blue, which carries few metaphorical extensions in Chinese. Brown and orange are metaphorical in English but not in Chinese. The different concepts in the cultures show different color conceptualizations, involving colors like white, black, red, yellow, green and grey.
| Colors | the world (01) | the mind (02) | the society (03) |
|---|---|---|---|
| white/whiteness | 01.02, 01.03, 01.04, 01.05, 01.06, 01.07, 01.08, 01.09, 01.10, 01.11, 01.15 | 02.01, 02.02, 02.04, 02.05 | 03.03, 03.04, 03.06, 03,08, 03.09, 03.11, 03.12, 03.13 |
| black/blackness | 01.01, 01.02, 01.04, 01.05, 01.06, 01.07, 01.08, 01.09, 01.10, 01.15 | 02.01, 02.02, 02.03, 02.04, 02.06 | 03.04, 03.06, 03.09, 03.11, 03.12, 03.13 |
| red/redness | 01.01, 01.02, 01.03, 01.04, 01.05, 01.06, 01.07, 01.08, 01.09, 01.10, 01.13, 01.15 | 02.02, 02.04, | 03.03, 03.04, 03.10, 03.11, 03.12, 03.13 |
| green/greenness | 01.01, 01.02, 01.03, 01.05, 01.06, 01.07, 01.08, 01.09, 01.10, 01.13, 01.15 | 02.01, 02.05, | 03.02, 03.04, 03.09, 03.10, 03.11, 03.12, 03.13 |
| yellow/yellowness | 01.02, 01.04, 01.05, 01.06, 01.07, 01.08, 01.09, 01.10 | 02.04 | 03.03, 03.04, 03.09, 03.11, 03.13 |
| blue/blueness | 01.01, 01.02, 01.03, 01.05, 01.06, 01.07, 01.08, 01.09, 01.10, 01.11 | 02.01, 02.03, 02.04, 02.05 | 03.01, 03.03, 03.04, 03.05, 03.06, 03.07, 03.11, 03.12, 03.13 |
| brown/brownness | 01.02, 01.04, 01.05, 01.07, 01.10, 01.16 | 03.03, 03.09, 03.12 | |
| grey/greyness | 01.02, 01.05, 01.08, 01.10, 01.16 | 02.02, 02.04 | 03.11, 03.13 |
| purple/purpleness | 01.02, 01.03, 01.05, 01.06, 01.08, 01.09, 01.10 | 02.03 | 03.01, 03.04, 03.06, 03.13 |
| orange | 01.05, 01.06, 01.07, 01.10 | 03.01, 03.04, 03.08, 03.09, 03.11 | |
| highest frequency | 01.05, 01.10, 01.02 | 02.04 | 03.04, 03.11, 03.13 |
| concepts not included | 01.12, 01.14 | 02.07 | |
| concepts most frequently associated | Life (01.02), Animals (01.05), Matter (01.10) | Emotion (02.04) | Occupation and work (03.11), Leisure (03.13) |
| Colors | the world (01) | the mind (02) | the society (03) |
|---|---|---|---|
| white/whiteness | 01.02, 01.03, 01.04, 01.07, 01.08, 01.13, 01.15 | 02.01, 02.03, 02.04, 02.07 | 03.03, 03.04, 03.06, 03.09, 03.11, 03.13 |
| black/blackness | 01.08, 01.10, 01.13, 01.16 | 02.01, 02.03 | 03.05, 03.06 |
| red redness | 01.03, 01.07, 01.08, 01.09, 01.15 | 02.01, 02.03, 02.04, | 03.04, 03.06, 03.09, 03.12, 03.13 |
| green/greenness | 01.02, 01.03, 01.04, 01.06, 01.07, 01.08, 01.15 | 02.01, 02.04 | 03.06,03.11 |
| blue/blueness | |||
| yellow/yellowness | 01.03, 01.08, 01.09, 01.15 | 02.02 | 03.06, 03.12 |
| brown/brownness | 02.01, 02.04 | ||
| grey/greyness | 01.08, 01.09 | 03.11 | |
| purple/purpleness | |||
| orange | 02.03 | ||
| highest frequency | |||
| concepts not included | |||
| concepts most frequently associated |
| Colors | Chinese | English |
|---|---|---|
| white | 01.03, 01.04, 01.07, 01.08, 01.13, 01.15 02.01, 02.03, 02.04, 02.07 03.03, 03.04, 03.06, 03.09, 03.11, 03.13 | 01.03, 01.04, 01.07, 01.08, 01.15 02.01, 02.04 03.03, 03.04, 03.06, 03.11, 03.12, 03.13 |
| black | 01.08, 01.10, 01.13, 01.16 02.01, 02.03 03.05, 03.06 | 01.03, 01.04 01.07, 01.08, 01.09, 01.10 02.02, 02.03, 02.04 03.06, 03.12 |
| red | 01.03, 01.07, 01.08, 01.09, 01.15 02.01, 02.03, 02.04, 03.04, 03.06, 03.09, 03,12, 03.13 | 01.07, 01.08, 01.13, 01.15 02.01, 02.03, 02.04 03.04, 03.06, 03.12, 03.13 |
| green | 01.02, 01.03, 01.04, 01.06, 01.07, 01.08, 01.15 02.01, 02.04 03.06, 03.11 | 01.01, 01.03, 01.06, 01.07, 01.15 02.01 03.04, 03.12 |
| blue | 01.02, 01.03, 01.04, 01.07, 01.08 02.01, 02.04 03.01, 03.06, 03.11, 03.12 | |
| yellow | 01.03, 01.08, 01.09, 01.15 02.02 03.06, 03.12 | 01.03, 01.04 02.04 03.12 |
| grey | 02.01, 02.04 | 01.03 02.01, 02.04 |
| pink | 01.08, 01.09 03.11 | 01.03, 01.07, 01.08, 01.09 03.11, 03.12 |
| brown | 01.07 02.02, 02.04 | |
| purple | 02.03 | 02.03 03.06, 03.09 |
| orange | 01.07 | |
| All Common Concepts | Life, People, Plants, Health and disease, Food and drink, Textile and clothing, Physical sensation, Matter, Time, Action, Mental capacity, Attention and judgment, Goodness and badness, Emotion, Authority, Morality, Occupation and work, Trade and finance, Leisure | |
| different concepts | Chinese only: Relative properties, Law, Language | |
Looking up color in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE), we can get the following lexicographical definitions shown as below:
Color 1) red, blue, yellow, green, brown, purple, etc.; 2) (also colours) the appearance of something as a result of the way it reflects light, especially when its appearance is very bright or is made up of a lot of different colors; 3) how dark or light someone’s skin is, which shows which race they belong to; 4) people/women/students etc. of color: (especially American English) people, women, etc., who are not white; 5) a substance such as paint or dye that makes something red, blue, yellow, etc.; 6) in full colour: a television programme, film, or photograph that is in colour contains colours such as red, green, and blue rather than just black and white; 7) if you have some colour in your face, your face is pink or red, usually because you are health or embarrassed; 8) interesting and exciting details or qualities that someone or something has
The third, fourth, seventh and eighth sense of color show the metaphorical thoughts of color in general. Metaphorically, there are LIFE IS COLOR, PEOPLE ARE COLOR, EMOTION IS COLOR, and MORALITY IS COLOR.
The Chinese equivalent of color is yán (颜), sè (色) or yán-sè (颜色). In Chinese most of the time one Chinese character is more expressive and productive than a phrase. Therefore, yán-sè (颜色), for many times, is often abbreviated as yán (颜) or sè (色).
The word color has several derived adjective forms in English: colored, colorful and colorless. Each has specific variant lexicographical meanings. Firstly, three dictionaries, Oxford English Dictionary (OED), LDOCE and MacMillan English Dictionary (MED)2 are chosen for the lexicographical meanings of colored, colorful, and colorless. The three derivative forms of color have their Chinese equivalents respectively in CCD: yŏu-sè-de (有色的 colored)3, căi-sè-de (彩色的colorful)4, and wú-sè-de (无色的colorless). The senses for each entry in the three dictionaries are shown in
In Chinese, color is connected with one’s inner face, a woman’s beauty, lust, etc., which is seldom found in English. Colored also has varied interpretation in the two cultures. In English colored people involves social etiquette and is regarded as a social taboo, while in Chinese colored glasses is not only colorized glasses, but also refers to people’s well-established biased opinion toward something or somebody. As for colorful, colorful language is conceived as a rude or
| Entry | Definition in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (CCD) |
|---|---|
| yán (颜) | (1) face, facial expression, countenance (2) face; prestige; (3) color; (4) a family name |
| sè (色) | (1) color; (2) look, countenance, facial expression; (3) kind, description; (4) scene, scenery; (5) the quality of object, especially precious metals, goods, etc; (6) a woman’s beautiful looks; (7) lust, sexual desire; (8) a family name |
| yán-sè (颜色) | (one sub-entry of yán (颜)) (1) color perceived by sensors (2) (written) countenance; (3) facial expression; (4) a lesson (to teach somebody) or a countenance (to show your emotion) |
| Dictionary | colored | colorful | colorless |
|---|---|---|---|
| LDOCE | 1) brightly/highly/richly etc coloured; 2) having a colour other than black or white; 3) a very offensive word used to describe sb. who is a member of a race of people with dark or black skin. 4) to describe sb. whose parents or grandparents were not of the same race as each other. | 1) having bright colours or a lot of different colours; 2) interesting, exciting, and full of variety; 3) colourful language, speech etc uses a lot of swearing. | 1) having no colour; 2) if your face, hair, eye, skin, or lips are colorless, they are very pale, usually because you are ill or frightened; 3) not interesting or exciting. |
| OED | 1) having a colour or colours, especially as opposed to being black, white, or neutral; a) imbued with an emotive or exaggerated quality; 2) wholly or partly of non-white descent; 3) used as an ethnic label for people of mixed ethnic origin, including Khoian, African, Malay, Chinese, and white. | 1) having much or varied colour; bright; 2) full of interest; lively and exciting; 2.1) involving variously disreputable activities; 2.2 (of language) vulgar or rude | 1) (especially of a gas or liquid) without colour; a) dull or pale in hue; 2) lacking distinctive character or interest; dull. |
| MED | 1) red, green, orange etc instead of black and white or transparent; 2) coloured hair has been treated with a chemical to make it a different colour; 3) sb. who is coloured is a black person. Older white people sometimes use this word thinking it is polite, but black people consider it offensive. | 1) sth. that is colourful has bright colours or a lot of different colours; 2) interesting, exciting, and sometimes funny; 3) involving exciting, but slightly shocking or illegal activities; 4) colourful language is rude or uses offensive words. | 1) sth. that is colourless has no colour; 2) not interesting, exciting, or original; |
| CCD | 1) yŏu-sè-jīn-shŭ (non-ferrous metals) a general name for metals except black metals like iron, manganese, and chromium; 2) yŏu-sè-rén-zhŏng (有色人种colored people) non-white people; 3) yŏu-sè-yăn-jìng (有色眼镜colored eyeglasses) bias or prejudice which prevent right opinion | 1) variegated color; 2) colored silk , color festoons especially for festivals; 3) applauses and a shout of praise; 4) variety; the interesting or brilliant part; 5) lottery prize; winnings; 6) special effects in Chinese theater or magic; 7) blood from a wound 8) a family name | (no entry) |
vulgar way of speaking in English. Sometimes colorful refers to something interesting or exciting, but often involving disreputable or illegal activities. In addition, colorful and colorless are thought to be a pair of opposite words, similar to the antonyms interesting and dull. But there is no such color conception in Chinese.
In Chinese, colorful is usually used positively, as in zhāng-dēng-jié-căi (张灯结彩to decorate with lanterns and colored festoons for celebration), măn-táng-căi (满堂彩applauses and a shout of appraise throughout the room), wén-căi (文彩the interesting or brilliant part in writing), căi-tóu (彩头good luck in business or gambling), etc. Another two metaphorical associations which are not found in English are the sixth and seventh senses, either. Taking these into consideration and looking them up in HTOED, the Chinese color is related to concepts like Blood (01.02.03.03.04), Belief (02.01.13.03.06), entertainment (03.13.01.05.04), and The arts (03.13.03.04.05).
Based on the concepts and concept interrelations in HTOED as well as the lexicographic definitions of the term color and its derivative forms as well as colors both in CCD and LDOCE as shown in
From the comparison, it can also be found that both languages color encompasses 10 common basic color terms, excluding pink. Among the 10 basic color terms, blue is lest metaphorical but white and red are most metaphorical in Chinese, while in English black, white, red, green and blue are more metaphorical than the other basic color terms.
The contrastive study of color as well of its derivative forms in English and Chinese dictionaries meanwhile help reveal the metaphorical potentials of color in different cultures and prove to some extent that both languages have some similarities in color concept.
The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
Su, Y. J., & Cho, Y. (2020). An HTOED-Based Contrastive Study of the Color Concept between English and Chinese. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 8, 395-404. https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2020.87032