Running Head: CONNOTATION MEANINGS OF COLORS
Connotation Meanings of The Three Colors: White, Red and Blue
in Vietnamese and English
Le Thi Thanh Thuy
Class 4A
HCMC University of Education
December 2009
1
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 2
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to discuss about the connotation meanings in Vietnamese and
English of the three most troublesome colors: white, red and blue. People see colors the same
but they think of colors differently, so they use colors to mean different things. Colors can
represent feelings, people, countries, cultures; as a result, different cultures have different
interpretations of colors. Language users should be aware of this to avoid misunderstanding
and cultural crash when communicating. This paper compares and contrasts the connotation
meanings of the three colors white, red and blue in Vietnamese and English, and then focuses
on its implication in foreign language teaching.
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 3
Connotation Meanings of The Three Colors: White, Red, and Blue
in Vietnamese and English
Oxford Dictionary defines that “meaning” is the thing or idea that a word represents.
“Connotation meaning” is an idea suggested by a word in addition to its main meaning.
Connotation involves feelings, attitude, and is surely affected by tradition, beliefs, and culture
of the users.
Color results from the way in which things reflect light. It not only makes us see but
also makes us feel and think. Ken Rohrer has noted that “Color means many different things
to different people and cultures. We all have our own favorite colors. People like different
colors like they like different foods.” There are three main colors: red, yellow and blue. These
colors combine to make other subordinate colors. White is considered a neutral color; red is
hot and blue is cold. Beside these literal meanings, colors have developed to be used for
conveying emotions, feelings and attitude… This is a natural but interesting phenomenon in
language.
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 4
White Color
For most cases and in most places, white has good associations. It is the color of many
pleasing objects in nature such as cloud, snow, flowers, fresh milk, kapok, swan, sunlight…
Therefore, it is usually connected with purity, virginity, innocence, hygienic cleanness…
Likewise, in English, white also symbolizes goodness, honesty, perfection, purity,
innocence… Angel is usually described wearing white. White is the color of happiness and
wedding, too. A white wedding is a traditional wedding in which the bride wears a white
dress.
Based on this information, we can somehow guess the meaning of some idioms
containing “white” in English. For instance, usually a lie is bad because it is not true to the
reality. However, if I tell you a white lie, that mean I lie to you but with a good intention, in
order not to hurt you, for example. A white lie is a small or harmless lie which has a good
purpose of not hurting the listener. A white witch is a kind-hearted woman who does magic
to help people, not an ugly, wicked old woman with a long hooked nose as usually depicted
in stories. White hope refers to a person who is expected to bring hope and success to a team,
an organization. White knight is a person who rescues a company from bankruptcy or from
being bought by another company at a very low price. If someone whiter than white, he or
she is completely good, honest and never does anything bad.
Ex: I never was convinced by the whiter than white image of her portrayed in the
press. (The Free Dictionary)
“Lily-white” has similar meaning, that is completely honest, morally perfect. It first has a
literal meaning: as white as the lily flower. “I treated you white” means I was kind to you, I
treated you properly, generously or with attention. “Generosity is white and pure like milk”
emphasizes the goodness, the value of being generous.
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 5
In some Eastern countries like Chinese or Vietnamese, white is not so favored. It is
the color for mourning and funeral. White is associated with weakness, paleness, emptiness,
and sadness. It is a fact that when we are sick, we lack blood, which makes our complexion
not pinkish but pale white. Too much plain white without other colors causes a feeling of
monotony, emptiness and loss: màu trắng tang tóc, trắng bệch, trắng như ma, trắng xác…
However, with some influence from the Western, white also has those positive
associations. Beside the red traditional aodai, brides often wear white dresses in wedding.
Students go to school in white uniform. There are many Vietnamese idioms containing
“white” with positive connotations: trong trắng, trinh trắng, thanh thiên bạch nhật, thanh
bạch…
White also means cleanness. It is the color of hospital and doctors. Handkerchiefs and
table-cloths are white…
Both in English and Vietnamese, white contrasts strongly with black, which is the color of
night and darkness. It symbolizes death, evils, fear, dirtiness… Crow, which eats dead
animals, sings badly, lives at night and has black feathers, is thought to bring bad luck. Death
is portrayed wearing black. Witches appear in black costumes. In pictures, Satan was always
painted as a black person. Black dog is a bad omen… The contrast is also found in many
English idioms: black market, black humor, black death, blacklist, black sheep, black mark,
back and white (clear, causing no confusions) put something down in back and white…
and in proverbs:
The devil is not so black as he is painted. (black is connected with characteristic of devil)
Two blacks do not make white. (It is wrong to repay a bad deed with another bad deed. This
shows “black” means “bad deeds” and “white” means “good deeds”)
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 6
He who blackens others does not whiten himself. (“blacken” means “do evils”, “whiten”
means “make somebody become good or better”)
When a dove begins to fly with crows its feathers remain white but its heart grows black.
Only lawyers and painters can turn white to black.
A whitewashed crow soon shows black again.
The black dog gets the food; the white dog gets the blame.
Give the white child so that the black child doesn't cry.
In Vietnamese we also have: đổi trắng thay đen, gần mực thì đen, gần đèn thì sáng, đen tối,
thế lực hắc ám, đen trắng phân minh…
Red Color
Red is the hottest of all warm colors. It is the color of blood and fire. Bear states that
red is hot and that it's a strong color that conjures up a range of seemingly conflicting
emotions from passionate love to violence and warfare (“Red,” n.d). The Wikipedia website
makes it more specific: red is associated with bravery, happiness, good luck, energy, and
emotions that "stir the blood", including anger, passion, love, and sacrifice (“Red,” n.d.).
Red usually have good connotation in Vietnamese. It represents happiness, luck,
success and love. Red is the color for wedding (whereas in the Western it is white color) and
celebrations (e.g. Tet, Mid-Fall Festival, inauguration, graduation ceremony…) In Vietnam,
there are red decorations, red wedding announcement cards (thiệp hồng), red envelopes
(which contain lucky money), red parallel sentences on the wall, red lanterns… Red rose
means passionate love. Tơ hồng (red silk string) represents marriage, premade in heaven. In
Từ Điển Tiếng Việt, we can also find “Lễ Tơ hồng” (the Pink-Thread Ceremony), “Ông tơ
hồng” (a god who makes love connections for people by binding a red thread around their
toes), “kết tơ hồng”… (mind you that “hồng” in Chinese means red). In Kể Chuyện Tục Ngữ
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 7
Thành Ngữ, there exists an idiom “lá thắm chỉ hồng” which mean fate in love, fate in
marriage, predetermined by God and cannot be changed (Hoang, p.194).
Red is the color of Vietnamese flag. It represents courage and sacrifice.
In English, red also sometimes associates with love and success. “Red-blooded”
means full of sexual energy. “Red carpet” means the route used for VIPs and celebrities in
formal celebrations. “Red-hot” means very exciting or successful as in “British athletes are
red-hot at the moment” (The Free Dictionary, “red-hot,” n.d.).
Red means danger or warning in both Vietnam and Western countries. We can find
some logical and scientific explanations. Studies have shown that red can have some physical
effects on us like increasing the rate of respiration, raising blood pressure, causing tense. Red
is effectively used to draw our attention, to catch our eyes. “Red bull’s eye” (hồng tâm) is the
centre of the target that you shoot or throw at. “In the red” means being in financial difficulty,
in debt. Warning signs are usually in red too: red light of the traffic lights which means
“Stop!”, red narrow road sign, red dangerous crossroads sign, red flag (used to warn of
danger), red alert (emergency status), red cross, red book (which contains a list of endangered
animals), no smoking sign, virus detection announcements of computers, teacher corrects his
students’ mistakes in red… We have an English idiom “a red rag to a bull”. For example:
“Don’t talk about politics. It’s like a red rag to a bull”. Bulls are strong, aggressive but colorblinded animals. They can realize no colors but red so they will rush to attack any red rags.
Red symbolizes fury, aggressiveness in both Vietnamese and English language. When
we are angry, more blood is pressed to our face and makes it turn red. That’s why we have
these idioms “see red” (be very angry), “a red face”, “go as red as a beet”, “red in the face”,
“giận đỏ mặt”, “đỏ mặt tía tai”, “mặt đỏ bừng bừng”, “mặt đỏ như Trương Phi”…
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 8
To sum up, red carries largely good connotations in Vietnamese but it usually means
negative in English: anger and aggressiveness.
Blue Color
Blue is a cold color. It is the color of a clear sky or the sea, the ocean on a clear day.
Therefore, blue brings a feeling of stability, security, peace, serenity… Blue is good for our
spirit because unlike red, blue slows down our heart beat rate and all metabolic processes.
Blue takes us to the state of resting and relaxing. It has good connotations especially in
Vietnamese. A blue sky is a good sign of nice weather, favor and smoothness. Blue sky or
blue river are always considered pleasant, peaceful, scenic and poetic images, as described in
Vietnamese songs and poetry:
Trái đất này là của chúng mình
Quả bóng xanh bay giữa trời xanh (“Trái Đất Này Là Của Chúng Mình,” n.d.)
Or
Quê hương tôi có con sông xanh biếc
Nước gương trong soi tóc những hàng tre (qtd. in andehit_ht. 2008)
In the song Lượn Tròn Lượn Khéo (n.d.), there is a scene of a quite, peaceful, leisuredly blue
sky:
Chim bồ câu trắng
Chim bay trên nền trời xanh xanh
Chim bay trên nền trời hòa bình
In English, blue sometimes indicates hope, expectations and optimism as in:
Alice has an optimistic view and always talks about a blue sky scenario.
Some proverbs also suggest this connotation:
Blue are the hills that are far away.
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 9
For whoever wants the blue sky, the price is high.
Behind the clouds the sky is always blue.
The sky is not the less blue because the blind man does not see it.
The air is no less blue because the blind man doesn't see it.
However, in general, blue usually has negative associations in English. It is often
connected with sadness and depression. “Blues” is a type of slow sad music with strong
rhythms. I’m feeling blue means I’m feeling sad. There is an English song Love Is Blue that
goes “Blue blue. My world is blue. Blue is my world. Now I without you” (“Love Is Blue
Lyrics,” n.d.). Baby blues (post natal depression) means a depressed feeling that some
women get after giving birth to a baby. A blue movie is a movie that has explicit sex scenes.
“Blue movies, or adult videos as they are sometimes called, are normally only available from
sex shops”; “Scream blue murder” means make a lot of fuss or shout loudly and emotionally
in protest, as in “They started to scream blue murder when I told them they would have to
work an extra half an hour on Saturday afternoons.” (Woodham, n.d.)
Discussion
In pedagogical view, teaching language includes presenting it in an easy-to-remember
way. One method is to give students some background information for them to guess the
meaning and link the new words with what they have already known.
In Odlin’s opinion, language transfer, or cross-linguitic influence, is “an important
characteristic of second language acquisition (p. 3). Good teacher need to make full use of
positive transfer and be aware of negative transfer. He should point out similarities and
differences between the connotation meanings of colors when teaching. Language is an
important component of culture. There have been a lot of linguists saying about their
relationship. Jiying (n.d.) asserts that “Language is not an abstraction existing in a vacuum,
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 10
but a described verbal reaction in a given cultural framework … A language does not exist on
its own but is embedded in the culture of a people and reflects the beliefs and sentiments of a
speech community.” (p.5). Malinowski (1946:44) also argues that “language is essentially
rooted in the reality of the culture, the tribal life and customs of the people, and … it cannot
be explained without constant reference to these broader concepts of verbal utterance.”
Therefore, learning language includes learning culture. When learning a foreign language, it’s
important to know and understand how the people speaking that language think and behave.
Indeed, teaching culture is essential. It motivates students, gives them a reason to
learn, arouse their curiosity and interest. Knowing the culture also does great help in
understanding and memorizing the target language, and in using it appropriately, effectively.
In other word, learning culture enhances not only students’ linguistic competence but also
communicative competence. It improves their understanding of the language and the people
who speak it. (Genc, April 2005. p.80). As a result, teacher has a responsibility to show the
similarities and differences between the students’ culture and the target culture. Teacher
should expose students to many authentic materials to introduce the target culture, for
example through dialogues, movies, songs, dances… and especially through Literature.
Likewise, since different cultures have different interpretations of color, when teaching
idioms containing colors, teacher should draw students’ attention to the connotation
meanings of these colors in each culture. White is the color of wedding in British culture but
the color of funeral in Vietnam. Red often means anger and fury in English but means
happiness and love in Vietnam. Blue is associated with sadness in Western countries but it is
the color of peace in the Eastern…
James alleges that “ A good teacher cannot indulge in the luxury of the ‘ours not to
reason why’ attitude” (1980. P.148). Teachers are expected to explain how the native people
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 11
interpret those colors, diagnose possible errors, choose the suitable materials and appropriate
methods. These help students build up a clear, exact and logical understanding and so an
easier and long-lasting memorization.
Connotation Meanings Of Colors 12
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Connotation Meanings Of Colors 13
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