A Comparative Study Of The English And Chinese Idioms

Idioms are an important part of the language and culture of a society. Weinreich(1969) said, "Idiomaticity is important for this reason, if for no other, that there is somuch of it in every language."1 Idioms are often hard to understand, and harder to useproperly. However, their proper use in language is often a mark of a person'scommand of the language. When communicating, the total neglect of idioms maycause the speech or writing to lack color and thus uninteresting, but the overuse orimproper use may make the language sound affected and unnatural.Due to the significance of idioms, many scholars have carried out researches tobetter understand them. Some linguists in the West study them from the semanticperspective (e.g. Makkai), some from the syntactic perspective (e.g. Katz, Postal,Fraser, Nunberg, Katz and Posta), and some others (e.g. Fernando) concentrate on thefunctional use of idioms. In China, there are also many scholars studying idioms.Some study the cultural and linguistic characteristics of idioms, some study theformation and sources of idioms, and some make a comparative study of English andChinese idioms. All these studies and researches done by both the western andChinese scholars have made great achievements, while at the same time, there are alsosome defects and imperfections in them. These defects and imperfections lie mainlyin the fact that although numerous researches from various perspectives have beencarried out, a thorough study on idioms from culture's main components has beenmarginalized for long.On the basis of assimilating the accomplishments of forerunners' studies and atthe same time being aware of their defects, this thesis first probes into the relationshipbetween culture and language, value and idiom, and then makes a comparative studyof the differences between Chinese and English values, i.e. oneness between man andnature vs. dividedness between man and nature, collectivism orientation vs.individualism orientation, and hierarchy orientation vs. equality orientation. Based onthese differences, the author makes a comparative study of the Chinese and Englishidioms. The aim of this study is to make an in-depth analysis of idioms, getting at theessence of the matter — the causes that make the diversities in Chinese and Englishidioms. What's more, by doing so, the author wants to improve the English learners'cross-culture competence and offer a salutary lesson for the future English teaching.This research belongs to the qualitative study, and the methods adopted areconsulting relative materials and making a comparative analysis. The significance liesin that through this study, we can have an in-depth understanding of the characteristicsand usages of the idioms. Meanwhile, we can have a brand new perspective for theidiom learning and teaching.