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l days. This is the same in English. For example, Christmas and other special days are printed in red on calendars. These are called red-letter days. In order to give a lavish welcome to distinguished guests, hosts will roll out the red carpet for them.

White has different connotations. White in English represents purity and innocent. So westerners call the wedding day White day. And the bride is always in white wedding clothes. But white in Chinese has another meaning. People in China have white at funerals.

Black in both Chinese and English is associated with negative meanings: blacklist(黑名单), black market(黑市)，black money(黑钱)，a black sheep(害群之马) and a number of others.

Blue has no special association with feelings in Chinese. But in English it represents sadness. In a blue mood means a sad or depressed mood. Similar in meaning are a blue Monday, blue song, blue music.

Blue is also associated with high social position or being aristocratic family. He’s a real blue blood means he’s from a noble family.

Green is often referred to envy by westerners. Green-eyed monster or just green-eyed both have the meaning jealous, envious. Sometimes green is also used to indicate lacking in experience or train, as in The new typist is green at her job.

Yellow appears in English phrased as yellow journalism. But it is not 黄色期刊in Chinese. It is a kind of journalism distorting the fact to create a sensational effect. Yellow Pages in American is a book with the telephone numbers arranged according to different categories.

Other colors also have certain connotations. Teachers should help students understand the colorful words usages.

4.3 Cultural differences in social contact

Anyone who learns a little English knows that the equivalent of Chinese words “谢谢” is “Thank you” in English, but it’s a big knowledge to make use of “Thank you” appropriately in different social circumstances. “Thank you” is widely-used in response to congratulations in English, while such polite formula as “过奖过奖”, “惭愧惭愧” are commonly applied in Chinese. In these cases of communication in English, if we respond literally saying “you flatter me”, or “I feel ashamed” instesd of saying“thank you”, it would rather be indecent. Take another example, a visiting scholar in the U.S. replies in accordance with Chinese customs by saying “No, no, it’s just a very ordinary dress” when somebody comments favorably on the dress she wears with “That’s a lovely dress you have on”. That leads to a pragmatic error. The hearer will believe that such a reply indicates she is unable to tell good from bad. (Deng Yanchang, 1981)

4.4   Cultural differences between China and Western society represent differences of folk custom.

A Chinese saying “Selling dog meat by hanging a sheep head” (挂羊头卖狗肉) rather than “Selling mutton by hanging a dog head” (挂狗头卖羊肉) embodies Chinese tradition that people comment favorably on sheep while unfavorably on dog. Dogs have impressed China mainland so badly that most words and phrases made of “狗” (dog ) are almost derogatory. Chinese words as “走狗，恶狗，看门狗，丧家狗，哈巴狗，狗汉奸” are examples of this kind. “A lost dog”, which 本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。