A Sociolinguistic View of Animal Names in Idiomatic Expressions in Chinese and French

Abstract

Abstract This paper attempts to explore animal names1 in Chinese and/or French idiomatic expressions in the light of representation (la représentation), a notion interpreted by French sociolinguist Henri Boyer.2 As linguistic phenomena are believed to be rooted in society and explained by the latter, animal names in different languages could be culturally loaded via their figurative/symbolic significations, due to the representations associated with animal referents in a given society. On the premise that animal referents generally exist in the physical world, the representations of animals would be formed on the basis of animals’ appearances, their habits and their relations with other animals, especially in accordance with the observation and the exploitation of animals by human beings in social life, and might be eventually enhanced, modified or even created in the common imagination. Besides animal referents as objects of human cognition, the other reason accounting for animal representations could be that human beings tend to attribute their moral values and spiritual expectances to the animals around them.