A Study On Chinese And English Proverbs About Marriage From The Perspective Of Contrastive Linguistics

Language is the carrier of culture and an important tool for human communication. As a special form of language, proverbs summarize people’s life and working experience,which sparkle with wisdom. Proverbs about marriage is the summary of people’s marriage life and attitudes, and Chinese and English proverbs about marriage contain their specific own cultural connotations. Comparing marriage proverbs from different cultures and nations is to analyze their marriage cultures and customs. Such a kind of comparison helps people comprehend the mystery of these two languages and understand the similarities and differences as well.There are four purposes of this study:first, it provides English learners with background information concerning Chinese and English proverbs about marriage so they can have a better understanding of Chinese and English marriage proverbs in various situations; second, marriage proverbs reflect their own customs of marriage respectively, so English learners will respect and accept others’cultures, thus improving learners’ competence of cross-culture communication; third, it is hoped that teachers should pay more attention to the teaching of Chinese and English marriage proverbs; finally, it is also the author’s hope that this study can throw some insights into the teaching of marriage proverbs and aid learners to learn marriage proverbs efficiently through analysis of originals and culture factors.This study collects the related Chinese and English marriage proverbs by consulting Bilingual English Proverbs (Li Zhonghe,2003), A Chinese-English Handbook of English Proverbs (Zhu Xinhua,2010), Bilingual English Proverbs Enlarged and Classified Edition (Yang Zeng mao,2003), Chinese Proverbs Dictionary (Yang Yan et al.2007), Chinese Proverbs(Li Yaozong,2008) and A Compiled Book of Chinese Proverbs (Xv Mei,2002). This research makes a comparison between Chinese and English proverbs from the perspectives of language features, conceptual metaphor, and cultural connotations. On the perspective of language features, besides rhyme and repetition, Chinese marriage proverbs often use tonal pattern (pingze), antithesis (duizhang), alliterative compound and rhyming compound to enhance the expression effect while English tends to employ alliteration and assonance. Equivalent semantic relationship and semantic causal relationship are commonly used, and autonyms are a good way to highlight the expression effect. Chinese and English people compare marriage to journey, pant, heart, building, commodity and war. Chinese people prefer to regard marriage as predestined relationship while English people consider it as constraint. Many marriage proverbs reveal Chinese and English cultural characteristics respectively. In choosing spouse, they lay stress on capabilities, family trait, dowry and equal social standing. In addition, Chinese people pay special attention to the spouse’s ages and zodiacs. They believe firmly that incompatible ages or zodiacs may lead to unhappy marriages. On the terms of marriage purpose, Chinese people marry to carry on the family line while westerners lay emphasis on love and social convention. Englishmen choose spouses by their own; arranged marriages through the words of match-makers and parents are a unique marriage form in China. Marriage cultures in Chinese and English proverbs are rich and abundant, which are mainly affected bu Chinese Confucianism and western Christianity.The contrastive study in this thesis facilitates people to master language features of phonology, semantics, vocabulary, and grammar structure and help people know about their marriages, and then provides advice for establishing successful marriages. At the same time, it opens a window for westerners to learn about Chinese traditional marriage culture.