Colors in American Culture

In American culture different colors can stand for different meanings. The symbolical meanings of the colors are very much involved in the Americans＇ daily life, which they use in slang and idiom.     

The Special Meaning of Color Words in Chinese and Western Culture

In Chinese and western culture,color words are both as many as the sands in the Ganges river and stars in the blue sky.And its meanings have something in common and also something that is different.To find out the same points and differentias and to avoid mistakes in intercommunication,the writer will analysis the meanings of some main color words and makes an explain for the differences from the aspect of culture between Chinese and western countries by the means of comparison and analysis.After the analysis,the writer discovers that the meanings of the colors are basically different except the purple,and which are deeply affected by their each culture.And the meanings of them would change in the situation of intercommunication.Therefore,we should use these words properly.     

Misunderstanding Due to Different Cultures

There are fences between different cultures. People from different cultural backgrounds may sometimes misunderstand each oth er. In this passage, we merely take Chinese culture background and American culture background as examples.     

A Comparative Study of the Origin and Structural Features of Chinese and English Idioms

Idiom is an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either grammatically or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements(Merriam-Webster).Idioms are the sediment of their societies and culture.Concise is the main characteristic of idioms.Because of the loan of culture,idioms can express a large amount of meanings by a few words.Idioms come from all aspects of human life.The delicate and compact structure gives birth to the idioms which express the meaning beyond the literal one.Different types of life produce different types of cul-ture;in return,different cultures produce different idi-oms.     

Social and Cultural Influence on Word Meaning

Different nations have different social cultures, and the social culture of every nation is developing with the development of the nation, language is greatly influenced by social culture, which enables language to possess national and historical characteristics. Word is the smallest, independent, meaningful linguistic unit of language. It can well reflect the national and historical characteristics. From synchronic aspect, the social and cultural influence on word meaning is mainly embodied in conceptual and associative meanings of word. The incorrespondence of word meaning is a phenomenon that exists in both conceptual and associative meanings of word among different languages. From diachronic aspect, the development of social culture causes some changes of word meaning to some extent. Therefore, social culture plays a key role in vocabulary learning and mastery of a language.     

On the Cultural Comparison between Chinese and English——The Analogy of Animal Words

Languages convey cultural information while they are used as tools to communicate.With the development of human society and the frequencies of intercultural communication,cultural differences may impact on people’s normal communications.Cultural differences between English and Chinese appear in many aspects of languages.Animal words are influenced by such cultural factors as geographical conditions,historical developments,traditional customs,mythology and fables,etc.So they are endowed with abundant cultural connotations.A similar animal word may have different connotative meanings in English and Chinese respectively,but sometimes different animal words have the same connotations.Whether they are different or not will reflect cultural differences between Chinese and English.Thus,through illustration,classification and comparison of English and Chinese animal words,the thesis aims to explore the cultural differences between English and Chinese.What’s more,the thesis aims to help English learns have a better understanding of English culture and develop the abilities of English language study.     

A Comparative Study of Animal Vocabulary in English and Chinese

It is of great importance to learn the culture of a nation if we want to learn their language well.Some animals have common meanings in Chinese and English cultures,while some contain different cultural connotations.     

To Comprehend American Social Culture From American Cartoon Movies

The purpose of this study was to research the American social culture in detail from American cartoon movies. Since 1990s, a great number of excellent cartoon movies have been produced .For example the world famous Shrek, Garfield, and so on. Although the contents of these cartoon movies are different, these cartoon movies are one of the approaches for people to know American society and its citizens. Therefore, this study shows not only the background and the main works of American cartoon movies but also the different aspects of American social culture - politics, economy, education and values. In every aspect, some explanations of the affiliation between American society and its cartoon movies have been brought forward.     

The Core Value of American Culture——Freedom

Any understanding of America must come to terms with its central value and ideal.Freedom is such an influential val ue as well as one of the core values of American culture.It remains the sole basis for American society as we know.Without free dom the great nation of America would never have been founded.This paper tries to explore freedom as a value and its manifesta tion in USA from four aspects:politics,religion,speech and academics.     

Gold and Black:The Impacts of Zodiac Tiger on Yingying in The Joy Luck Club

According to recent researches in Chinese American literature, there are a few researchers who put their cores on the Chi-nese traditional zodiac culture, especially in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, in this book the zodiac culture cannot be ignored since it becomes one inseparable part of some roles. These characters, like Yingying, are endowed with special meanings with the zodiac culture, so it would not be easy to understand clearly without analyzing the impact of zodiac in The Joy Luck Club. So The purpose is trying to find out what are the impacts of the zodiac culture on one of the mother figure, Yingying, by using the relevant data and information from zodiac experts to evaluate the zodiac Tiger of Yingying from two sides, which includes"gold"and"black", then wecan conclude more profound understandings about other Chinese American literary works connected with Chinese zodiac culture.     

“Plane”as symbol of Redemption in The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Ernest Hemingway is a great talented writer in American literature. The Snows of Kilimanjaro is considered to be one of his best stories.“plane”is a recurring image in this novel. Through analyze symbolism meaning of“plane”,we can find that“plane”as a line run through the whole novel and is a symbol of different redemption meanings when presents in different places,which builts a redemption trajectory from the corruption of body to the rising of spirit. The paper analyze“splane”as symbol of redemption from three parts: the redemption of body; the redemption that protagonist needs; the redemption of soul.     

Cultural Contradiction——A Brief Analysis of Jenny:Symbol of a Cultural Rebellion in Forrest Gump

This paper first introduced the main contents of the movie:Forrest Gump.On one hand,the movie advocates truth as well as honesty.It tries to help people to get rid of the alienation of modern civilization,and find the true beauty of human nature.On the other hand it makes the movie a classic of contemporary American culture.The essay made some analysis to the years and events which the movie has talked about.Then by detailed analyzing of the main character:Jenny,and the comparison between Jenny and Forrest,their different fates and the values they represent,the paper highlighted the different destiny caused by the values they hold and showed that they were strongly influenced by the mixture of culture values of that period.At last,with the combination of the main characters Jenny and Forrest,it indicates that different life values have melted into one,and the subculture finally gave way to the main culture.     

The Collision of Individualism in Chinese and American Talent Shows——A Case Study of American Idol and Super Girls

Recently,American talent shows with its unique glamour and huge profit have attracted many Chinese TV stations to imitate.The process of imitation is essentially a collision of American and Chinese cultures.This study focuses on American Idol and Super Girls,discusses their different manifestations of individualism and analyzes the reasons behind it.The analysis shows that the differences of the two countries’cultural background contribute to the different manifestations of individualism.In a word,during the process of imitating American talent shows,the problems of Chinese talent shows indicate that American individualism has its positive as well as negative effects.Consequently,Chinese people should hold a critical attitude toward American individualism.     

Cultural Differences and Translation of English & Chinese Idioms

The paper is trying to analyse idioms both in China and in England from varied aspects to help translators gain a better under standing of the language itself.Because of the differences from genercal culture,conventional culture,religious culture,historical culture,thoughts of numeral,expression of color,understanding of objective things,translators must adopt different methods of translation.More over,a translator should make continuous comparisons between our two cultures because translation equivalence and its very sense should be matched in meanings,functions,scopes and feelings in the two cultures.     

Body Language on Nonverbal Communication

Body language is an inevitable part in human interaction and it is also a component of national culture.Body language is of great importance in human interaction,because we rely heavily on it when we communicate with others.Body language is composed of eye contact,facial expressions,physical contact,gesture and posture,etc.Though body language is a necessity in nonverbal communication,it has different meanings in different cultures.     

An Analysis of the Black Cultural Images in Everyday Use

Everyday Use is one of the best novels by Alice Walker,who is a famous African American woman writer.It is also the typical work that can reveal the black’s attitudes to their culture.In this work,house,fire and quilts are the black cultural images.The writer describes the phenomenon that African Americans hold different attitudes to their various cultural images which reveals the African American’s living conditions under the diversified culture.     

Cultural Relevance of Color Terms in Chinese and English

Color terms perform both the aesthetic and informative functions and possess various meanings according to different cultural backgrounds. It seems that people are more likely to label colors in a consistent fashion in each unique culture. Therefore, it is highly essential to investigate the cultural relevance of color terms, especially the color words in Chinese and English. Translation of color terms is also discussed from different aspects to show people’s cultural preferences.     

Miniature of The Bluest Eye—A Stylistic Approach to the First Fragment

Morrison’s The Bluest Eye begins with a fragment—a triply-repeated story.In the second narration,all punctuation disappears,along with the capital letters.In the third telling,the spacing between the sentences fades,which creates a sense of incomprehensible linguistic chaos.A stylistic approach is adopted to interpret underlying meanings:insanity of the protagonist Pecola and dark sides of American society.Methodically,it is the first time that optics is employed to interpret story,and stylistics can nourish itself from natural sciences.     

On the Relation between Cultures and Discourse Systems

Owing to the development of new technology and information systems, the earth has become into a ＂global village＂ and the contacts among people become more frequent and significant. When different people from different races, nationalities, or backgrounds meet together, because of culture diversity, they often behave in different ways that are not understood by the others. Hence the study of intercultural communication is very important. Traditionally the study is based upon cultures that are shared by larger cultural groups, such as Orientation-culture, Western culture, European culture, African culture, Chinese culture, American culture, or even high-context culture and low-context culture. Since this kind of division easily leads to stereotyping and exaggeration of the positive or negative values of a certain cultural group, in recent years, the study has been focused on discourses, which are sub-grouping cultures such as corporate discourse, professional discourse, generational discourse and gender discourse. Discourse systems are smaller than whole cultures and tend to take on somewhat more homogeneous characteristics, if not ideological unity. In this paper, we give definitions of culture and discourse, and mainly focus on how diverse cultural issues influence communicators＇ perception and behaviors in different social or professional discourses. All our efforts on this study aim at successful communication.     

美国话语与美国文化

Language is a key component part of culture. It reflects culture. As a variety of British English, American English,especially American words reflect American culture, including their custom, their view of value, their character traits. Being amelting pot, American words melt a lot of loanwords. The exaggerated use of words shows Americans are self-confidence.They also use beautified words to show their wish to life, to future. They can use common words, usually slang to express spe-cial ideas. By doing so, they create something new and original. Learning American English, especially studying Americanwords, we can see some typical traits of American culture.