Abstract: The color word is a crucial part of each language. Influenced by its culture, many color words have cultural connotations. This thesis tries to make a comparative study of cultural connotations between English and Chinese color words.  And it discusses the factors that may cause differences of cultural connotations from three aspects: history, natural environment, and customs. Also some implications on cross-cultural communication are discussed. Cultural differences result in different cultural connotations of color words. Adequate and proper understanding of cultural connotations is helpful to language learning, sharing and understanding between two cultures, and cross-cultural communications.

Keywords: color words; cultural connotation; cross-cultural communication

摘要：颜色词汇是每个民族文化和语言中不可缺少的一部分，它有独特的语言功能和文化象征意义，反应着不同民族的色彩思想和文化传统。本文探讨了英汉颜色词汇的文化内涵差异，并从历史、自然环境、风俗习惯三个方面探讨了产生内涵差异的原因，并探讨了其对跨文化交际的影响。文化差异导致中英颜色词内涵的差异，充分理解颜色词的内涵对语言学习，两种文化的沟通与理解以及跨文化交际都具有一定帮助。

关键词：颜色词汇；文化内涵；跨文化交际