A Comparative Study Of English And Chinese Idioms From A Cross-cultural Perspective

Idioms are the cream of a language. When people of different cultures interact, idioms serve as a very useful and dominant medium of cross-culture communication, and best manifest the colorfulness, forcefulness, tenseness and connotative richness of the language. Through the use of idioms, we can see the cultural discrepancies in social customs, religious beliefs, the state of mind and historical development. This paper is a comparison of English and Chinese idioms, it also gives a brief account of the limitations of idiom learning and provides some suggestions for learning idioms, focusing on the following aspects:1. The concepts of language and culture and their relationship2. The classification of English and Chinese idioms3. The sources of idioms4. The fundamental features of idioms5. The degree of corresponding between Chinese and English idioms6. Limitations and suggestions for idiom learningAll these analyses show that idioms are concise, comprehensive and vivid, and are generally used figuratively. The meanings of idioms are often implied in the images and figures they contain. Therefore, during the course of study, one should not ignore the idioms, their strong national and cultural characteristics should be taken into consideration for the purpose of better cross-cultural communication.