The Cultural Connotations And Translation Of Animal And Plant Words In Chinese And English

During the long period of the process of society, man contacts with animals and plants frequently, and they are interdependent. So there are lots of words denoting animals and plants, especially, there are a large number of metaphorical phrases containing animals and plants as the vehicles both in English and Chinese. These kinds of phrases are used frequently, which makes English and Chinese vivid in images, plain in characters and rich in flavors. Because human experiences are very much alike throughout the world, everyone eats, sleeps, works, experiences a lot of common things, there is a common core in different cultures and languages. It is possible for people of different cultures to give the same or similar metaphorical meaning to same animals or plants. But because of the differences in customs, religions and ecological surroundings, the particular national cultures have formed. The cultural differences make people give different figurative meanings to the same animal or plant words, or even use different animal or plant words to express the same associations.From the perspective of cultural linguistics and cognitive linguistics, this thesis analyses the definitions of culture and translation and their relationship, and makes a contrastive analysis of the cultural connotations of animal and plant words in English and Chinese and the social cultural factors of the formation of the connotations, and finally explores the methods of translating these kinds of words.This thesis consists of three chapters:Chapter One deals with the definitions of culture and translation and their relationship and the cultural connotations of words and phrases.Chapter Two mainly demonstrates the corresponding relationships of the cultural connotations of animal and plant words in English and Chinese: lexical identity; lexical similarity; lexical gap and lexical conflict. Then it explores the social cultural factors of the formation ofthe cultural connotations: from mythology and folklore; from religions; from customs; from literary works; from ecological environment and material productive labor, etc.Chapter Three analyses the principles of translation, reviewing the famous principles proposed by the translation theorists both abroad and at home. Then it analyses in detail the methods of translating animal and plant words by means of large numbers of examples.In conclusion, the thesis stresses that the contrastive analysis and translation of the cultural connotations may strengthen the understanding of the foreign cultures and promote the cross-cultural communication, and it is significant and instructive to English teaching and learning.