Abstract：There are thousands of colour words in the English vocabulary.Through long-term practice ,they express not only the spectrum meaning, but also some symbolic meaning by the way of figure of speech and metaphor thus a lot of idiomatic usage came into being both in Western and the Chinese culture. Some people have shown particular favour or taboo for some colours.Therefore a number of idioms are related to colours , which may lead to misunderstanding in interculture communication. This article aims to do a detailed research of the basic meaning , symbolic meaning and the usage in the Chinese and English cultures respectively so as to raise our awareness of the differences and similarities in using colour terms ,which will bridge the gap caused by cultural fustrations.

Key words: colour words ; symbolized meaning ; usage

中文摘要：英语词汇中有大量的颜色词语，经过长期的使用，这些词语不但表达颜色的语义，还通过比喻，类比等手段表达了象征的意义。由此在西方文化及中国文化均有了大量的固定用法。人们对某些颜色还有特殊的喜好或禁忌，这样一来，不少颜色成语和颜色就有了联系，它会导致跨文化交际中的误解。本文旨在对颜色词语的基本含义，象征含义及其用法作详细研究，以便让我们在不同文化中使用颜色词语时的异同有所警觉，从而跨越文化差异的障碍。

关键词：颜色词汇；象征意义；用法