2。3 Research on White

Earlier studies show that “white” and “black” are the two colors that have the longest history among color terms in all languages in the world including Chinese, because they are the most constrictive and easily identified colors (Tao 1994：126, Baxter 1983:334, Hays 1972：78)。 This is probably also the reason why the Chinese white conveys a wide range of meanings, as illustrated below:

Original meaning:  “white color”           

Example:          白银 “white silver”

雪白 “snow white”

Extended meaning: “clean and pure”, “bright”, “blank/empty”

Example:          洁白 “clean and white”,

纯白 “pure white”

    Abstract meaning: “clear”, “dislike”, “funeral”, “in vain” “free”, “legal”, “anti-revolutionary”

    Example:          明白 “bright white/understand”

白话 “white/clear language”

                    白眼 “white eye/dislike”

                    白事 “white/funeral event”

白费 “white waste/in vain”,

                    白来了 “white come/come in vain”

                      白吃白喝 “white eat & drink/eat and drink for free”

    All these semantic functions listed above may be categorized into four types: 1, “white clean” 2, “white day/daytime” and “bright white/clear/understand” 3, “white eye/dislike” 4, “white event/funeral”。

Notice that the first four types of extended and abstract meanings have all been developed from original meaning “white color” either through metaphoricalization, namely meaning “construed as the analogical mapping of more concrete terms from a source domain onto a more abstract term in the target domain”, or through metonymization, which traditionally refers to the semantic process of using a part for the whole or one entity is used to stand for another associated entity。 来:自[优E尔L论W文W网www.chuibin.com +QQ752018766-

The first type extends meaning from the color “white” to the meaning “clean” with the assumption that if something is white, not tainted, then it is clean。 The second type involves development first from its original color meaning to temporal meaning - the light of day as in “white/bright sky” or “daytime”, and then to the description of abstract mental activity as in “(bright white) clear/understand”。 

In other words, if one has a “bright white” mind, not a “black” or “muddy” one, this person has a clear understanding of matters。 The third type simply extends original color “white” to refer to the whites of people’s eyes, leading to the interpretation “dislike” as in “white eyes”。 That is, if someone turns up his/her eyes and shows the whites, this person dislikes or even shows disdain and impatience with whatever s/he sees。 Clearly this is an instance where the lexical meaning of the color “white” extends to a phrasal meaning “dislike”。