A Comparative Study On English And Chinese Proverbs-Exploration Of Their Motivations

As is a common language phenomenon, proverb manifests the wisdom and culture of a people and plays an important role in cross-cultural communication. This paper gives a comparative study on proverbs in English and Chinese. By analyzing the literal meanings and implied meanings of correspondent proverbs in English and Chinese, the author divided them into three groups, correspondent proverbs, partial correspondent proverbs, and non correspondent proverbs. Then, with GCMT, by comparing 595 English proverbs and 550 Chinese proverbs, the author further explored the motivations for the existence of such phenomenon. Finally, the paper came up with the conclusion. According to the proverbs analyzed in the paper, more than half (about 51.4%) of the proverbs in English and Chinese are partial correspondent, i.e. they have similar implied meanings (GENERIC), but different literal meanings (SPECIFIC), while only a few (about 7.6%) of the English proverbs have no correspondent ones in Chinese. The motivations for the correspondent proverbs are mainly similar cognitive models, or both of the English and Chinese proverbs are of the same origin, and the Chinese one has its root in the English one, which can be concluded as results of similar experiences, while the non correspondent ones resulted from different cultural motivations including origins of classic literatures or celebrities, religious beliefs and values. The motivations for the partial correspondent proverbs can be summarized mainly as different cultural models, because people tend to use familiar and common words in proverbs. Therefore, different living environment, living styles and customs, religions, uses of rhetorical devices, origins of classic literatures and celebrities, modes of thinking, etc. may result in different literal meanings of proverbs.This paper may help both speakers to understand both English and Chinese proverbs and their motivations better and assist them in cross-cultural communication. This may also throw some light on pedagogy and translation.