On Culture-Oriented Translation Of English And Chinese Idioms

Language and culture are closely related to each other. They interact with each other and shape each other. Language is a part of culture and also an important carrier of culture. Idioms are gems of languages which have been refined through ages of use. Idioms are set phrases and sentences habitually used in a certain language which are concise in form and comprehensive in meaning. They carry a large amount of cultural information such as history, geography, religion, custom, nationality, psychology, thought pattern etc., and therefore are closely related to culture. The difficulty in idiom translation lies in the different cultural information carried by idioms in different languages. If the translator cannot deal with the different cultural elements appropriately, the misunderstanding and loss of culture in translation is inevitable.The thesis will explore the subject of idiom translation from a cultural perspective by analyzing the definition and scope of idioms and making a comparison between English and Chinese idioms. According to the relationship of cultural features in English and Chinese idioms, the thesis classifies idioms into three types:corresponding, semi-corresponding and non-corresponding and presents different translation strategies for them. With the prospering of international communication, people's desire to learn about foreign culture is becoming stronger and stronger. Therefore, in order to make readers get a fresh reading experience, the thesis proposes that idiom translation should be culture-oriented, that is to say, preserve the source language culture as much as possible. Culture-oriented idiom translation can not only faithfully express the spirit and thought of the original works, therefore is understood and accepted by readers, but also broaden culture horizon and enrich Chinese and English vocabulary.