Abstract:Animal idioms, as the essence of English and Chinese language, have a long history and strong national culture background. Its production and use shows different performances and          characteristics in different cultures, so animal idioms translation is always difficult to handle. Animal idioms are widely used in the production and life of Chinese and western people, but as the outcome of different thinking modes and cultural backgrounds, the same kind of animal image may have different meanings in different languages and cultures. The situation can produce equivalent image association, but sometimes the associations are quite different or even completely contrary. This article, from the perspective of cultural contrast between English and Chinese, first expounds the influence of cultural differences on the translation of English and Chinese animal idioms, then it gives some examples to compare and analyze typical animal idioms in English and Chinese language, and discuss how to use translation strategy to translate the animal idioms in an inflexible way. The purpose is to find the best balance point between the target text readability and retaining of the original culture so as to promote cultural exchanges between China and Western countries.

Keywords: animal idioms; cultural differences; contrastive study; translation strategy

Contents

中文摘要

Abstract

chapter 1  introduction1

   1.1   Research Background1

   1.2  Purposes and Significance1

CHAPTER 2  LITERATURE REVIEW3

2.1  Domestication and Foreignization.3

2.2  Dynamic Equivalence4

CHAPTER 3  REASONS FOR CULTURAL CONNOTATION DIFFERENCES5

 3.1  Different Living Environments.5

  3.2  Different Traditional Customs5

  3.3  Different Historical Allusions.5

  3.4  Different Religions.6

CHAPTER 4  COMPARISON OF CONNOTATIONS OF  ANIMAL WORDS IN ENGLISH AND CHINESE IDIOMS7

4.1  The Culture Connotation of the Same Animal Words in English and Chinese.7

4.1.1   Same Animal Words with the Same or Similar Cultural Connotation-7

 4.1.2   Same Animal Words with Different Cultural Connotations.7 

4.2  Different Animal Words with the Same Cultural Connotations in    English and Chinese8

4.3  Animal Words with No Corresponding Cultural Connotations in Another Culture8 

4.3.1  Animal Words with Connotations in Chinese but with None in English.9  

4.3.2  Animal Words with Connotations in English but with None in Chinese9 

CHAPTER 5  THE MAIN METHODS FOR TRANSLATE ANIMAL IDIOMS.11

5.1  Literal Translation11

5.2  Free Translation11

5.3  Foreignization12

5.4  Substitution12

CHAPTER 6  CONCLUSION.13

REFERENCES15

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS-.17