Importance Of Verbal Taboo On Color

Verbal taboo exists in everywhere in the world. Taboo became English word which derived from the natives of Polynesian Tonga Island in the south Pacific. Taboo means to “sacred”, “untouched” which is its original meaning. In 1777,James Cook, an English explorer, came to the Tonga island and he surprisingly found that there are a lot of society phenomenon which include some words can not be said casually or the others must be discontented, even frighten. The Tongan called this phenomenon “Taboo”. And then James Cook brought this word to British and English adapted this word. In China, taboo is called “禁忌(jinji)” which has long history for it was found recoding in some classical books of Ham dynasty. “禁(jin) ” is mean something prohibited by law;“忌(ji)”is mean something can not be

3.1.3 Verbal taboo about color
Definition of color shows the presence in all the ethnic groups. Due to the different cultural background, the meaning of color is distinction. Among all the colors, both red and white are the most representative color of showing the cultural difference between western and Chinese.
Red is the favorite color in China because it is the symbol of lucky. For example, Chinese decorate the red lantern and dress in red clothes and give children lucky money in the red envelop during the New Year. And after China was declared as a socialist state, red has its new definition of revolution and socialism which includes Red Guard, the Red Army, etc. while red is a derogatory word in the western. Red is the word which represent brutal and bleeding for it always associate with fire and blood. For example, red revenge and red battle which mean is bloodily violence. Red also represents danger and harlot, like red alert and red light district. And sometime it can represent some negative emotion of human , such as: become red-faced, waving the red flag and so