| Proverbs are generally considered as brief, witty sayings in common use that convey morals. They couch conventional wisdom in clever form and imagery, thereby making them memorable and easy to pass on from one generation to another. They are the summary of class struggle, working practice and life experience of human beings. Proverbs represent the unique characteristics and cultural features of a nation. Without proverbs, a language would be barren and insipid, void of vitality, vividness and expressiveness. Therefore, it is necessary and instrumental to undertake some research work on proverbs.With the aid of the Hi-Tech of the 20th century, the planet on which the human beings are living is on its fast track to become a global village. People of various cultural backgrounds communicate with one another. Cross-cultural communication has been the most outstanding characteristics of the present era. The historical experiences of China and other countries have again and again proved that cultures need exchanging and peoples need to communicate. Only through communication can we learn from each other and come to know each other better. Only through communication can we give full play to human wisdom and enjoy the common fruits of civilization. The achievements brought about by cultural communication can never be over-estimated. Translation has taken over the responsibility of narrowing the cultural distance betweennations. Since proverbs are a general summary of human experiences, and no aspect of life remains yet to be untouched by proverbs, it is no exaggeration to say proverb translation can play a major role in introducing various human experiences to people of different cultures. It can familiarize people of one country with the cultural heritage of the other, thus achieve the goal of cross-cultural communication. In a sense, proverbs serve as a mirror of the historical and cultural conceptions of a social community, reflecting the panoramic picture of linguistic and cultural traits of that community in a most concentrated and profound way. Proverb translation is, in fact, a question of apt treatment of different cultural traits indicated by proverbs.As for English and Chinese, there are abundant proverbs in them respectively. Although discussion and publication on Chinese and English proverbs and their translation are plentiful, treatment to this subject is far from exhaustive and perfect. Proverb translation, in the author's opinion, should be approached as literally as possible and as freely as it is necessary, for in proverb translation practice, a translator should not only render the meaning, but most importantly, help the target language readers taste as much as possible the genuine foreign flavor contained in the source language proverbs and experience what the source language readers have experienced.Since proverb translation involves unique cultural traits, translators should be aware of the translation pitfalls to guard against. In order to conduct successful proverb translation, translators should arm themselves with certain qualifications, namely, bilingual competence and cultural awareness. They are also required to do a careful comparative study of cultures implied in proverbs to ensure a better result in the cross-cultural communication.The present dissertation is composed of five chapters. Chapter Three and Four form the core of the dissertation.Chapter One gives an introduction to the dissertation. First comes the significance of studying English, Chinese proverb translation. Then, it stretches out the overall arrangement of the dissertation, and states its goal as for better cross-cultural communication.Chapter Two provides the definitions of proverb and culture and the relationship between cross-cultural communication and proverb translation. Origins of proverbs from both English and Chinese are also discussed: human experiences, literary works,religions and social discrimination for the purpose of informing the target language readers of the colorful cultural... |
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