Translation Of English And Chinese Proverbs

As a particular part of language, proverbs are concrete fragment of wisdom, results ofobservation and embodiments of universal truths. They are pithy, comprehensive andfull of figures of speech and serve as a mirror of the historical and cultural conceptionsof a social community. Readers can enrich themselves with plentiful interestinginformation of other cultures by familiarizing themselves with proverbs. When proverbsare being translated, translators are confronted with difficulties of retaining thecharacteristics as well as the images and national flavour of the original in translation.The author gives, in this paper, special attention to the following four parts. (1) Theorigins of proverbs prove that proverbs are closely connected with culture in everyaspect. (2) Characteristic features of proverbs mainly deal with the rhetorical devicesemployed in proverbs. (3) Principle of proverb translation aims to provide a feasibletheoretical guidance for proverb translation. (4) Some commonly made mistakes inproverb translation are analyzed and main concrete methods discussed in proverbtranslation. By emphasizing these four parts, the author thinks that literal translation isthe best way to keep the sense, figure of speech as well as images of the originalproverbs and to acquire the highest degree of cultural exchange.In order to make this thesis a vivid and convincing one, a large number of examples,mainly excerpted from the publications mentioned in the bibliography and theirdifferent versions are also presented here.