英汉对比之动物习语

The Differences Between Chinese and Western Culture in Animal Idioms

Both in English and Chinese, there is a great amount of idioms, which reflect history background, custom and its people's ways of thinking of a nation. Both in English and Chinese, animal idioms play an important part of idiom and exist in our daily life. It is well known that there are many similarities and differences in English and Chinese, especially animal idioms and therefore we are justified to make an attempt to investigate this phenomenon.

Animal is man's best friend. Different animals have different natural instincts and life styles. And because of the culture communications between east and west and the similarity of thinking manners, an animal word would have same or similar connotations. For example, English people would say, "He is a fox." Similarly, Chinese people can understand the meaning of the sentence in Chinese"他是一只狐狸". This example shows that in English "fox" can be used to describe somebody who is cunning and dishonest. In addition, wolf is a kind of greedy and cruel beast, so in China there exist such expression: “狼心狗肺”，“狼狈为奸”，“狼子野心”. Similarly, the savage, sinister, dishonest character of wolf also displays vividly in western culture, eg:" a wolf in a sheep's clothing or a wolf in lamb's skin(披着羊皮的狼)". The following are some other familiar examples: as busy as a bee (像蜜蜂一样忙); as slow as a nail (像蜗牛一样慢); as free as a bird (像鸟儿一样自由). These idioms are given the same cultural meaning from their characteristics, so that both English and Chinese can understand each other directly and easily in cross-cultural communication. At the same time, with more and more communication, lots of foreign words come into both languages. We can find some idioms with even the same images and the same intonations, such as:fish in troubled water浑水摸鱼a dark horse 黑马etc.

The majority of animal words carry different connotations, because of their different natural environment, customs, and society systems. Besides, English history is influenced more by Egypt and Roman, while Chinese history is much more independent.

Human beings and animals coexist on the earth. Some of the animals have close ties with human. When the productivity was still at a pretty low level, some of them devoted a lot to fighting against the nature and the attack from other beasts. Some may not. In China there are many dog-related idioms and the word “dog” in most phrases is associated with some derogatory connotation. Such as: “狐朋狗友”, “狗急跳墙”, “狗头”, “走狗”. Although in English, “dog” contains derogatory connotation, such as: “go to the dogs”, “die like a dog”, “lead a dog’s life”, “a sly dog”, “blush like a black dog”, “put on the dog”. But it is always considered as the most faithful human friend. The vast majority of such idioms in English are complimentary. For example:You are a lucky dog. 你是幸运儿An old dog barks not in vain. 老年人做事有经验as faithful as a dog. 像狗一般的忠诚A good dog deserves a good bone. 有功者受赏Love me, love my dog. 爱屋及乌clever dog. 聪明的小孩Every dog has his day. 凡人皆有得意日. Because of religious difference, dragon has been viewed totally different in Chinese and western culture. In Chinese, dragon symbolize holly, power, auspicious, and it is the symbol of our national character. To some extent, it stands for our thousands years’long history. In ancient China, the emperor was called“真龙天子”. Dragon is a divine totem in the Chinese culture, and is greatly worshiped by the Chinese people and they consider themselves as the descendants of