Comparative Study Of English And Chinese Allusions

As the essence of language, allusions are the crystallization of a nationality's history and culture. We could find out the footmarks of a nationality from barbarism to civilization by the formation and development of allusions. Terse form and profound moral, allusions are a commonly-used method of language expression in everyday communication and writing. With the improvement of language and culture exchange on international occasions, more attentions are paid to the study of allusions which have pronounced cultural connotation. English and Chinese are two mostly-spoken languages and rich in allusions in the world. By contrastive analysis of English and Chinese allusions, we can find out the general characters and differences between them, and understand them better. This thesis comparatively analyzes English and Chinese allusions from four aspects:Firstly, the thesis describes the different cultural sources formed English and Chinese allusions which are based on different cultural bases. Based on the whole western culture, most of the English allusions are from Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible, parables, fairy tales, and literary works from main writers in western countries such as Shakespeare. Mainly based on the Han's history and culture, most of the Chinese allusions are from the academic works of pre-Qin thinkers,...