Metaphorical Research On Animal Proverbs In English And Chinese

Proverbs, as the product of human wisdom accumulating national practice and experience, are glittering gems of the cultural treasure house in the world, and an important part of language and culture. As an important part of linguistic and cultural phenomenon, proverbs have always attracted many scholars'attention both at home and abroad. Based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory of Lakoff and Johnson, the author makes a comparative analysis of proverbs that contain zodiacs (cattle, sheep, horse, pig, dog, chicken, tiger, hare, monkey, mouse, snake and dragon) in English and Chinese, and found that:most of the animals are used to construct the conceptual metaphor "HUMAN BEINGS ARE ANIMALS"; most of the meaning extensions of animals in animal proverbs are negatively valued; there is similarity in meaning extensions of the same animal image, but the number is limited; there are difference in metaphorical meanings of animals in English and Chinese:people use the same animal image to express the same meaning, but there is some difference in people's emotion; for the same animal image, there are rich metaphorical meanings in one language, but meager in another language; people use different animal image to express the same meaning; people use the same animal image to express totally different meanings. And these differences result from the influence of the living environment, religious beliefs, living style ect.This paper includes six chapters. Chapter One introduces the significance, research methods, purpose and outline of this thesis. Chapter Two is a literature review, which concerns the previous studies of proverbs at home and abroad. Chapter Three discusses Aristotle's, Richard and Black's, Lakoff and Johnson's, Lakoff and Turner's views of metaphor, the relationship between language and culture, definitions of proverb, data collection and the standard of data selection. Chapter Four is a comparative analysis. The author classifies the zodiacs into three types:the domestic animals, wild animals and imagined animal, focuses on the comparative analysis of proverbs that contain zodiacs in English and Chinese based on Lakoff and Johnson's Conceptual Metaphor Theory and discusses cultural characteristics of animal proverbs in English and Chinese. Chapter Five is the findings and discussion. This chapter concerns the metaphorical similarity and difference of animal, and the causes of the metaphorical differences. Chapter Six is a conclusion. The author makes a summary of this thesis, and suggests some approaches to English teaching and learning, proverbs translations, and some advice for further research.