A Comparative Study of English and Chinese Animal Proverbs—From the Perspective of Metaphors

Abstract

Proverbs, in nature, are greatly associated with culture. In both form and meaning, they are concise and comprehensive, vivid in images and select materials widely, delivering all sorts of physiological information and cultural knowledge and explicitly expressing all human beings’ life, social and historical experience. Since the ancient time, animals have been the most intimate friend of human beings, and people intend to express their feelings and points of view on animals. Therefore, some animal words are added with people’s feelings and associations, human beings often deliver ideas and feelings through animals. There are lots of animal proverbs in English and Chinese. Metaphor is ubiquitous. It is not only a rhetorical device but also a mode of thoughts. There are some similarities and differences in animal proverbs’ metaphor because of the similar and different faith, value, and ways of thinking and aesthetic orientation. I will make a comparative and contrastive analysis of metaphorical meanings between English and Chinese proverbs and compare some representative animal proverb metaphors. This study is carried out from three main aspects: the same animal produce the same association and metaphorical meaning; the same animal produce different emotions and associations; different animals produce the same association and metaphorical meaning.