Astudyofculturalmetaphoricalcomparison Of English And Chinese Animal Idioms And Theirtranslation

Idioms, according to The New Oxford Dictionary of English, refer to a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words.An idiom is the fruit in the process of human's production in the world and perception towards the world. It is the prime of languages. We can imagine that a language will not have any vigor without idioms, and a language will be so dull and boring without idioms. In the long process of human development, human beings largely depend on them for living, playing, etc. This relationship makes us have pretty complicated emotions toward animals, so animals are used in languages to express metaphorical meanings. The comparison of animal idioms helps us explore the cultural origin and the relationship between language and culture. An idiom is the reflection of actual life, and animals as a great component of the earth's lives are expressed in our languages to make our languages more vivid and symbolic. It has great significance to study animal idioms deeply, which can help us not only have more interests in learning idioms and languages, but also let us get deeper understanding of English and Chinese, and prepare for actual use of idioms. An idiom is a special kind of expression and essence of a language. It is most widely used in daily communication as well. An idiom, as a reflection of social culture, contains extraordinarily rich meanings in both culture and pragmatics. The diversity of characters in idioms is a showcase of a nation's historical development, geography, politics, economy, religious beliefs, myths, literature, art and so on.Animal idioms in both English and Chinese consist of animal names. But the author finds very few researches have studied animal idioms from the cultural metaphorical point of view. Most of the current studies on animal idioms focus on the comparison of animal idioms in Chinese & English, analysis of causes from the perspectives of geography, culture and literature. Some researchers pay attention to translation of different animal idioms. At the same time, similarities and differences reflected by animal idioms in Chinese & western cultures are commonly covered.In this thesis, the metaphorical images of English and Chinese animal idioms are deeply explored and compared. From this perspective, the cultural information carried by animal idioms reflects the similarities and differences of the concrete forms of the two languages and shows the cultural characteristics of each unique nation.This thesis is constructed in the following structure. Chapter One is the literature review. It introduces the previous cultural metaphorical studies on animal idioms at home and abroad. Only when the present research result has been acquired, can further study be proceeded. Chapter Two introduces cultural metaphor. Firstly, the writer gives the definitions of cultural metaphor and metaphor. Metaphor at first was only considered as a figure of speech. Aristotle considered that metaphor is a linguistic means to express a certain meaning using one word to replace another. The main function of metaphor is describing something vividly. In this chapter. The author finally compares the relation between culture and metaphor to link them together. Chapter Three comes to make a comparison of cultural metaphor between English and Chinese animal idioms. Due to similarities and differences of geography, physical structure, living styles, and other reasons, there happened to have some coincidences and diversities of animal idioms between the two languages. Therefore, it is of great significance to compare them and analyse the metaphorical causes. In the last chapter, the writer deals with the different translations according to the classification of animal idioms in cultural metaphor to help English learners avoid misunderstanding in intercultural communication and have a better communication in the future. The thesis deeply explores that animal idioms contain rich metaphor and metaphor uses animal idioms to express rich cultural connotation. The author studies animal idioms in English and Chinese from a more accurate and systemic perspective, which makes readers have a comprehensive and clear understanding of animal idioms in the two languages and will use them more correctly in the future.