A Study Of The Effects Of Cultural Differences On The Interpretation Of English And Chinese Idioms And The Coping Strategies

The21st century is the era of information, different countries communicate with each other in the area of politics, economy and culture. The interpreting plays an important role in the successful communication among people who come from different countries. The interpreting relates to politics, economy, science, technology and other areas. During the communication, many speakers prefer to quote idioms to draw audiences’attention. The idioms also can help speakers to get high efficiency. There are some unique features of idioms, just like humor, terseness, vividness. So idioms become the essential part of the language. Language belongs to culture, which includes people’s thinking patterns, social customs and habits, value orientation and ethical concept. So the form of idioms is influenced by religious belief, history allusions, environment, and habits of diet. The idiom owns strong nationality and folk characteristics. Different countries have their own cultures. The interpreting brings some barriers to the idiom interpreting. A qualified interpreter is not only equipped with solid language foundation but also needs strong cultural awareness to catch the accurate and overall meaning. Obviously, some strategies should be adopted to overcome the obstacles which mainly come from the cultural differences, such as literal translation, substituent, explanatory interpreting, sentence pattern transformation and contextual interpreting.