论中英文中动物词汇的文化差异

英语词汇学期末论文

论中英文中动物词汇的文化差异The Cultural Differences of Animal Words in English and Chinese

ABSTRACT

Language is the crystallization of human cultural development contains a nation's social consciousness, history, culture, customs and other social characteristics. Different cultural backgrounds and cultural traditions, making the different way of thinking, values, codes of conduct, and lifestyle between Chinese and English. There is much more obvious in animal words. Due to the differences in culture, the two languages, English and Chinese, the cultural connotation and significance given the same kind of animal is generally different. From a linguistic point of view, by contrast of Animal Words in English and Chinese to reveal the cultural differences.

KEY WORDS: cultural differences, language

中文摘要

语言是人类文化发展的结晶，蕴含着一个民族的社会意识、历史文化、风俗习惯等各方面的社会特征。不同的文化背景和文化传统，使中西方的思维方式、价值观念、行为准则和生活方式等方面也存有一定的文化差异，在中西方的动物词汇中体现得尤为明显。由于中西方文化的差异，英汉两种语言赋予同一种动物的文化内涵和意义一般是不同的。本文从语言学的角度，对比英汉语言中的动物词汇，以揭示文化差异。

关键词：文化差异、语言

Contents

I Introduction (5)

II The Cultural Meaning of Animal Words in Chinese and English (5)

2.1 The Same Animal Words with Commendatory Meaning in Chinese

but Derogatory in English (6)

2.2 The Same Animal Words with Meaning in Chinese but

Commendatory Meaning in English (6)

III Reasons for These Differences (6)

3.1 Religious Influences (7)

3.2 Fables (7)

3.3 Customs and Living Habits (8)

IV Conclusion (8)

I Introduction

Animals play a very important role in the lives of human beings. Every kind of animal has their own characteristics, which endow them with many cultural meanings. Language is an essential element of one concrete culture of a people, and it influences culture deeply. Animal words ,as an essential aspect of language also influence culture. At the same time , culture also influences language and animal words. Along with the development of human society , animals in different peoples own different cultural meanings by different prospect of views according to their characteristics, their stories, and their relation with human beings, etc. This phenomenon can be found in Chinese and English easily. China, which has a long history of 5000 years, possesses rich culture which influences Chinese language and the animal words. In Chinese , many animal words have their own cultural meanings and these meanings are used frequently in the lives of Chinese people. What will reflect in people’s mind as soon as mentioning one concrete animal is not only the image of that animal, but also its cultural meaning. English, which is most widely spoken in the world, is also influenced by the culture of English-speaking countries. So animal words also load as

rich cultural meanings in English as that in Chinese. Because of these differences in Chinese and English culture, the cultural meanings in Chinese and English of animal words are different.

II The Cultural Meaning of Animal Words in Chinese and English There are many animal words as well as animals in the world. However , animal words in different culture may not necessarily have the same meanings. In fact, they might be quite different in Chinese and English.

Some of the animal words have totally different cultural meanings in Chinese and English. There are some animal words have commendatory meanings in Chinese but derogatory meanings in English. While some other animal words have derogatory meaning in Chinese but commendatory meanings in English.

2.1 The Same Animal Words with Commendatory Meaning in Chinese but Derogatory in English

It is quite common to find that many animal words have completely opposite meanings in Chinese and English. Some of the animals are appreciated by the Chinese people, so those animal words own commendatory meanings in Chinese .

Every Chinese is quite familiar with dragon, which has rich cultural meanings in Chinese .It is the symbolization of Chinese nation. To Chinese ,a dragon is something scared and has been referred to as the ancestor of the Chinese nation-that’s why the Chinese all call themselves descendents of the dragon. In ancient time, people thought dragon is a mythical with great power. It symbolized the king in feudal society. So the kings were called “sons of dragon”.

Dragon is scared to every Chinese . However, in western people’s minds, dragon is a large imaginary animal that has wings and a long tail and can breathe out fire. Dragon, is a word that generated from Greece word “drakon” that means “to see”, “to look out ” , “to watch” and “to flash” .In English speaking countries people think a dragon is dangerous , winged monster that kills and eats people, lives in caves and breathes fire. Therefore ,in western ,the dragon is with derogatory meaning.

It is the most typical example to show the different meanings of animal words in

Chinese and English.

2.2 The Same Animal Words with Meaning in Chinese but Commendatory Meaning in English

There are also many animals which are appreciated by the people in

English-speaking countries while rejected in China. Those animal words have completely opposite meanings in Chinese and English as well.

Owl is a kind of usual animal. But its cultural meaning is totally different is English from in Chinese. Its cultural meaning in English is quite positive while in Chinese it is completely negative. In English culture, owl symbolizes wisdom. However it is totally distinctive in Chinese. There is a superstitious belief that owl is an unlucky bird and is the symbol of disaster and death in Chinese people’s minds. Their cry symbolizes that some bad things would happen in a short time and it is also related to the corpse and funeral.

It is difficult for English to understand why so wise a bird is considered as bad luck in Chinese .And the same dose the Chinese.

III Reasons for These Differences

There are so many differences in the cultural meaning of words in Chinese and English. With the development of culture in China and English-speaking countries, the language develop as well. These differences are mainly caused by the different culture of China and English-speaking countries. Therefore different cultural meaning of animal words are also resulted in by culture.

3.1 Religious Influences

Religion is an essential element of culture . It has great influences on language and animal words. Serpent , in English means wisdom, subtlety, and devil. In Bible, Jesus tells his disciples to “be wise an serpents and innocent as doves.” In Chinese there is no phrase about serpent related to wise.

3.2 Fables

In both Chinese and English culture ,these are many fables. Many animals play some characters in those fables. They have special meanings in these stories. Along with the development of culture, the meanings of animal words have been influenced by fables

In Canada there is a fable about a lion and a beer. The lion plays the role of the king of animal. It is wise and knows the characteristics of all animals and their good qualities. It is also knows how to make full use of their characteristics. So in English lion is just as solemn as a king.

In Chinese there is also a fable about lion. A lion meets a dog, and it wants to eat the dog . At first it is cheated by the dog. But when it meets the dog again, it eats the dog without any hesitate. In this story ,the lion is fierce without any regal. So when Chinese people want to express the meaning expressed by lion in English , they would choose tiger.

3.3 Customs and Living Habits

Animals are in important part of people’s lives. The customs and living habits of people in China and English-speaking countries influence the cultural meanings of animal words.

In English-speaking countries, people like having a dog as their pet. They treat their dog as their friend or even their family member. So dogs are appreciated by most of the people in English-speaking countries. But in China dog is not the pet in a family. If a family keeps a dog, it must be treated as a slave, which is just used to watch the gate of the house.

IV Conclusion

Animals and human beings are closely linked with each other. Animals have great influence on human languages. Cultural meanings that come from some characters of animals are deep in implosion and symbolism. As part of the huge vocabulary system, animal words embody each cultural character of English and Chinese. Through the contrast of these “culturally-loaded words”, it is clear that animal phrases in any language are not the representatives of animal image only;

cultural differences impress a mark a=on animal phrases which therefore have all kinds of abundant cultural contents. It is obvious that cultural tendency cannot be ignored during their process of language learning. People should store their minds with related cultural background knowledge at right time to solidify their knowledge structure and improve their capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.

It can be seen that the cultural meanings of animal words in different language is a subject being worthy of further exploring. In most cases, although both English and Chinese have the same conceptual meaning of animal words, they are varied in cultural meaning. Their cultural meanings are related closely with daily life, which can stimulate learner’s interests to learn it. In the process of learning English, learning different cultural meanings can provide practical guidance on language learning.

Bibliography

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[2].https://www.360docs.net/doc/295087908.html,/note/66309545/

[3].Corpus-based Approaches to Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies S. Granger