The Translation Of Chinese Animal Idioms From A Cultural Perspective

Idioms are considered the essence of languages. They are accumulated along with the cultural development. Idioms are concise, but involve aspects of culture such as religion, history, customs, literature and geographical environment. Some scholars have studied idioms from a cross-cultural perspective, discussed the reasons associated with these cultural elements and introduced translation strategies. This thesis focuses on the translation of Chinese set phrases with animal words from a cultural perspective. The schemata theory and the dynamic equivalence theory provide a theoretical basis for this discussion about the translation strategies on transferring of meanings, culture and images.The comparison of cultural connotations involves the value judgment of animals. This thesis makes modifications to the popular views among Chinese scholars through investigating relevant materials and collecting data. Language has the features of isomorph and fuzziness. Chinese idioms and English ones have their own distinctive features in culture, structure and rhymes, all of which result in limited translatability of animal idioms.The differences in culture have exerted a significant impact on the cultural connotations of animal idioms. The studies on the cultural matches of the animal words in Chinese and English idioms have a positive effect in the further understanding of the native cultures, and in eliminating the potential misunderstanding in international communication.This thesis discusses the translatability of animal idioms based on the schemata theory. Nida's dynamic equivalence theory is applied to study translation principles and strategies. The study on the features of Chinese and English idioms, their cultural connotations and translation strategies is expected not only to help improve native people's cultural quality but also propel the cultural exchanges by learning foreign cultures.