A Contrastive Study Of Cultural Factors In English And Chinese Idioms

Language is the major medium in intercultural communication. With the rapid development of intercultural communication in recent decades, the cultural factors in different languages have been attracting more and more attention of linguistic scholars. In order to make intercultural communication more successful, many scholars have become interested in the study of cultural similarities and differences encoded in different languages.Originating from various sources of cultural creation, idioms are heavily loaded with cultural implications. They can reflect cultural factors of different languages in both direct and profound ways. English and Chinese, as two languages owning most speakers in the world today, both abound in idioms. Misunderstanding of cultural factors in English and Chinese idioms often causes failure in intercultural communication between English-speaking people and Chinese. Therefore, a contrastive study of cultural factors in English and Chinese idioms is very meaningful. In a narrow sense, this is a study of the cultures behind English and Chinese idioms; in a broad sense, it is a study of the Occidental Culture and Oriental Culture. A contrastive study is one of the important methods to make researches on languages and cultures. In recent decades, the contrastive studies of English and Chinese have been progressed quite greatly in China. Some scholars have ever made contrastive studies of English and Chinese idioms; but due to the complexity of cultural factors in idioms, it is still needed to make more studies of English and Chinese idioms from the perspective of culture. This thesis aims at making a little research in this domain. By making a contrastive study, the author finds out that English and Chinese idioms share some similarities in the aspects such as linguistic characteristics, linguistic functions, and cultural connotations, etc.; but they also have many differences in the aspects such as linguistic characteristics, linguistic functions, range and classification, idiomatic sources, and cultural backgrounds, etc. These findings include both the most salient traits directly reflected by idioms and the deep cultural implications. In contrastive studies, we should not only get to know the similarities and differences between different languages and cultures, but also try hard to find out the deep reasons of them, and finally apply the results of the study to practice; this is just about the significance of contrastive studies. Therefore, after the comparison and contrast of the cultural factors in English and Chinese idioms, related linguistic concept and theory are respectively applied to accounting for the similarities and differences between English and Chinese idioms. The similarities between English and Chinese idioms are a reflection of language universals and the differences are a demonstration of linguistic relativity. Finally, the application of the findings is also touched upon: some ways to promote mutual understanding of idioms in intercultural communication are proposed according to the influence of cultural factors in English and Chinese idioms on intercultural communication between English-speaking people and Chinese.This contrastive study of cultural factors in English and Chinese idioms reveals that there are much more differences than similarities between English and Chinese idioms. The cultural factors in idioms have much influence on intercultural communication. To be bilingual one must be bicultural. In order to master a foreign language and succeed in intercultural communication, people should not ignore its idioms. The cultural factors in them should be taken into consideration in language teaching and learning for the purpose of better intercultural communication.