Contrast Of Cultural Connotation Of Animal And Plant Terms Between English And Chinese And Their Translation

This thesis is about cultural connotation of animal and plant terms and their translation. It is because the study of animal and plant terms should not be carried out only on the surface but in a cognitive way (pragmatic and semantic), the present study normally remains in the domains of translation in pragmatics and intercultural communication. In this study, many animal and plant terms are collected for the analysis of different cultures between English and Chinese. Furthermore, it develops from animal metaphors and associations of plant terms in English and Chinese. Many animals have become a kind of symbolism in people's thinking, which is reflected in languages. In almost all ethnical groups, animal terms have taken on various and rich cultural connotations. So animals have become part of people's life. Besides animals, the primitive people lived on the plants they got from the nature. In order to have enough to eat and store some, they began to learn to make stone implements with which to plant plants, so we can see human beings have direct and close relation with plants, and many customs and idiomatic usages about plants have come into being, and so has such culture. People take interest in those beautiful or vigorous plants, which arouses their deep feeling. And they have gradually formed the ideology of likes and dislikes and aesthetic standards, moral standards and religious tradition. All of those are subject to different cultures. Culture is the very factor that endows diverse connotations to animal and plant terms. On the other hand, animal and plant terms are for certain a useful window by which the cultural discrepancy, similarities, connotations and diversities are most liable to be perceived distinctly. Furthermore, according to the study of the cultural connotations of animal and plant terms, one can have an in-depth apprehension of the commonness and individuality of culture and thus avoid misusing their implications and lessen the cultural shock. A translator should attach greater importance to cultural equivalence than to any other aspects. When the associative meaning of a word in English and Chinese is different, we should choose translation methods suitable to solve the problem.