A Study Of C-E Translation Of Animal-related Idioms Based On Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Concise in forms, fixed in structures and neat in formations, idioms are importantcomponents of the Chinese language, which reflect the wisdom of Chinese nation.Idioms are the hot topics studied by many scholars over a long time. However thereare not many studies focused on the metaphors in idioms, and few studies areconducted based on the conceptual metaphor theory. As a special kind of fixed phrases,Chinese animal-related idioms are vivid and meaningful. Most of them are expressedin a metaphorical way and they are allusions with rich connotations. These uniquefeatures of Chinese idioms bring about lots of problems when translated into English.Conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson can help us tounderstand and master the essence of metaphorical concepts. This thesis analyzes themetaphorical expressions of Chinese animal-related idioms in detail from theperspective of conceptual metaphor theory, based on the corpus of over100items ofChinese animal-related idioms, which are expressed in the typical metaphorical way. Itcan effectively guide us to translate the implied meanings of metaphors in Chineseidioms with acceptable images of derivative metaphors in English if the conceptualmetaphors which have been constructed in the minds of English speakers are takeninto consideration. Then corresponding translation methods for metaphors in Chineseanimal-related idioms are put forward in the thesis in order to contribute to thetranslation practice of animal-related idioms.