Abstract

Color is a natural phenomenon that is closely linked with human life. Since early times, studies on color words have been done at home and abroad. As time goes by, color words have been broadened to a large category with more and more new characteristics. Recently, the so-called New Color Words (NCWs), such as “naughty orange”, “passion blue”, “优雅紫(elegant purple)” and “胜利红(successful red)”, enjoy great popularity, especially in commercial industries like electronics, cosmetics, clothes and so on. Compared with traditional color words (TCWs), NCWs have more emotional characteristics as well as many rich and abstract meanings. 

This study analyzes the most representative new color words from the Internet, TV and other resource as our linguistic data. In Chinese NCWs, it mainly studies NCWs that have three Chinese characters. There is no doubt that NCWs become a popular topic for lots of researches from different perspectives. With the rapid development of cognitive linguistics, it is of great significance to do studies based on cognitive theories. Thus, this essay aims to study on NCWs from the perspectives of cognitive metaphor and metonymy. It also presents a semantic analysis of NCWs both in Chinese and English to explain its structure and characteristics, origin, background as well as the classification and functions. Besides, the survey on the use of NCWs states the frequency and popularity as well as the necessity and limitation.

On the basis of the analysis, this thesis provides five types of NCWs: Noun+Basic color words, adjective+basic color words, verb+basic color words, loanword+basic color terms and “zero color” color words. Compared with traditional color words (TCWs), NCWs have three obvious characteristics: randomness in word collocation, subjectivity in word’s meaning and originality in word’s expression. According to the semantic aspect, NCWs can be classified into two types: new realistic-type and freehand-type color words. The function of NCWs is embodied in commercial, literatural, artistic and emotional aspects. From the analysis of NCWs from the perspectives of cognitive metaphor and metonymy, it is found that generally metaphor exists in new freehand-type color words while metonymy new realistic-type color words. And in some NCWs, both metaphor and metonymy exist. 

Through the survey on the use of NCWs, the thesis points out the universality of NCWs in commercial areas. The use of NCWs benefits people a lot. However, NCWs tend to be arbitrary and fuzzy, which cause troubles and misunderstandings in daily life. Thus, it is significant to take action to standardize the naming of NCWs. Those of great arbitrariness and fuzziness should be gradually eliminated. Only in this way, the development of NCWs can have a bright future. 

Key words: TCWs; NCWs; metaphor; metonymy; semantic; necessity; limitation

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 A Contrast between Traditional Color Words (TCWs) and New Color Words (NCWs)-1

1.2 Objectives of the Study-2

1.3 Significance of the Study-2

2. Literature Review-3

2.1 Definition of Cognitive Metaphor-3

2.2 Definition of Cognitive Metonymy-3

2.3 Researches on TCWs Abroad-4

2.4 Researches on TCWs at Home-5

2.5 Researches on NCWs at Home and Abroad-5

2.6 Summary-6

3. Semantic Analysis of Chinese and English NCWs-7

3.1 Structure and Characteristics-7

3.1.1 Structure-7

3.2 Origin and background of the use of NCWs-9

3.3 Classification and Functions of NCWs-10

3.1.1 Classification-10

3.1.2 Functions-10

4. An Analysis of NCWs from the Perspectives of Cognitive Metaphor and Metonymy-12

4.1 An Analysis of NCWs from the Perspective of Cognitive Metaphor-12

4.2 An Analysis of NCWs from the Perspective of Cognitive Metonymy-14

4.3 An Analysis of NCWs from the Perspectives of Cognitive Metaphor and Metonymy-14

5. A Survey on the Use of NCWs-15

5.1 A Contrastive Study of Chinese and English NCWs-15

5.2 Frequency and Popularity of NCWs-17

5.3 Necessity and Limitation of the Use of NCWs-18

5.2.1 Necessity of the Use of NCWs-18

5.2.2 Limitation of the Use of NCWs-19

6. Conclusion-21

6.1 Summary-21

6.2 Implication-22

References-23