Meanings of the word 白 (white) in Chinese and trắng/bạch in Vietnamese

Abstract

The word 白(white), apart from being used to describe white color as in its primary meaning, carries many derivative meanings that show the associative thinking of Chinese people.This word is considered a Sino-Vietnamese word that exists together with the word trắng (white) in Vietnamese language. The symbolic meanings of 白 (white) in Chinese and bạch/ trắng(white) in Vietnamese share certain similarities and differences. In the article, some research methods and techniques such as statistics, analysis, comparing and contrasting are used to clarify the meanings of 白 (white) in Chinese, and to compare it with bạch/ trắng (white) in Vietnamese to show the similarities and differences between them. It is hoped that the findings of the paper could be used as a reference to teaching methods, interpretation, and Chinese-Vietnamese contrastive analysis.