A Comparative Study Of Chinese And English Idioms From The Perspective Of Cultural Difference

This thesis attempt to analyze idioms from the perspective of thought patterns.As one of the most important and interesting parts which is worth investigating, idiomhas already been well studied since the20thcentury from all kinds of perspective, forexample, semantics, pragmatics, SLA, cognition, etc. These former studies have beenilluminative to the present study of idioms. If language is a code conveying something,then idioms are a special code which conveys much more with limited words, whichgives full play to language utility. And idioms have thoughts, which wouldaccumulate through time, not day or year, but decade and century. So idioms reflectthe thought evolution of language. Idiom is also an important part of culture. Thus athrough analysis of the Chinese and British idioms would give us a clear picture of thedifference between Chinese thought pattern and British thought pattern.This thesis is a collection and a summary of Chinese and English idioms to findthe cultural difference. There are three factors that influence the shape taking ofidioms: geography,history and religion. Idioms are presented and analyzed from theperspective of three attitudes: the attitude toward life, world and value. The examplesare typical and representative. Finally, codes have been summarized between Chinaand UK. And the conclusion is that the most important factor is geography. Farmingculture has shaped the Chinese collectism, and fishing culture has shaped the Britishindividualism.The whole thesis will be divided into five parts.The first part includes something about idioms, which are the definitions ofidiom and analysis of the definitions so as to reach a conclusion of the generalfeatures of idioms. The second part introduces that there are many factors whichinfluenced the shape taking of idioms, such as geography, climate, politics,convention and so on. The third part is a comparison between Chinese and Englishcultural differences illustrated by idioms. Idiom Codes Theory is put forth in the fifthpart, and some codes of Chinese culture and British culture are introduced in this part.The final part is a conclusion of the major findings of how these thoughts still influence people in the modern days.