Cultural Metaphor and Translation Strategies in English and Chinese Animal Idioms

Abstract

Idiom is an important part of language. Thanks to the intimate relationship with animals, there are a large amount of animal-related idioms in human language. Human tend to express different emotions and reflect some social phenomena in certain times with the help of animals. As a result, most of idioms which include animals are terse but concise, short but comprehensive. A lot of animal idioms are found in English and Chinese language. However, since there are great differences in history, culture, geographical environment, fairy tale, custom, religion and mode of thinking between England and China, people who speak English and people who speak Chinese as their native language have different ideas for the same animals. So do the animal associations. Therefore, there will be different cultural metaphors in English and Chinese idioms. These cultural differences can be divided into three groups: conflict of cultural meaning between English and Chinese animal idioms and cultural exclusiveness of English or Chinese animal idioms, which lead to great trouble in translating. Combined with a large number of examples, this paper aims to analyze characteristics, differences, and reasons of animal idiom from the perspectives of conceptual metaphor and try to probe into some suitable translation strategies when translators are facing a variety of difficulties, whether direct translation or changes animal in English (Chinese) idiom with another animal in Chinese (English), so as to meet the target of retaining the original meaning.