An Analysis of the Cultural Connotation in English and Chinese Idioms1

1、浅析中英习语的文化内涵an analysis of the cultural connotation in english and chinese idiomsabstract: different people from different countries may have different understandings of the same sentence because of their different cultures. while the ultimate aim of english learning is to cultivate students competen

2、ce to apply english correctly, fluently, and appropriately in inter-cultural communication. idioms, a part of language, are the essence of culture in every country and they embody the rich cultural features. if students dont understand the cultural connotation reflected in idioms they may have great

3、 difficulty in understanding and communicating with people from different countries. therefore, it is necessary for language learners to make the study. this paper is divided into three parts. the first and second part shows people what idiom is, what culture is., as well as their relationship. the

4、principal part of this paper is the third part, which discusses the idioms reflecting the differences of chinese and western cultures in various levels with many lively, important, and interesting examples of idioms in hope of helping language learners lessen misunderstanding and improve the communi

5、cative competence in inter-cultural communication.key words: idioms; culture; culture connotation 摘 要： 不同的人来自不同的国家，因为他们不同的文化，可能对同一个句子有不同的理解。然而，英语学习的最终目的是让学生能正确的，流利的，恰当的，在跨文化交际中运用英语。习语是语言的一部分，是各国文化的精髓，体现了丰富的文化特征。如果学生不理解习语所反映的文化内涵，他们可能很难和其他国家的人们正确交流。因此，英语学习者很有必要对习语进行研究。这篇文章分为三部分。第一和第二部分主要写了什么是习语，什么是文化

6、，以及它们之间的关系。第三部分是文章的主体部分，论述习语在文化的各个层次上所反映的中西文化差异，并采纳生动有趣的例子作为论据进行适当的分析，希望帮助语言学习者减少对习语的误解和提高跨文化交际的能力。关键词：习语；文化；文化内涵contentsi. introduction1ii. literature on the studies of idioms.2iii. idioms and culture.3a. definition of idioms.3b. brief introduction of culture.4c. language and culture.5iv. comparati

7、ve analysis of cultural implication of chinese and english idioms .6a. differences in regions and geography .6b. differences in convention and values.7c. differences in historic allusion8d. differences in religious belief10v. conclusion 11work cited .12an analysis of the cultural connotation in engl

8、ish and chinese idioms第 12 页 共 12 页i. introduction idioms are an important part of the language and culture of a society. idioms are often hard to understand and even harder to use correctly. the proper use of idioms in a language is often a mark of a person's command of the language. english an

9、d chinese idioms carved with cultural characteristics account for a great part in communication. generally speaking, idioms include colloquialism, proverb and slang. it is a group of words with a special meaning different from the meanings of its constituent words (eugene 15). the abundance and vari

10、ety of idioms in the english language may be to a great extent for by the historical development of the language. many idiomatic expressions come from the everyday life of people.every language is laden with idioms. an idiom is a word or group of words that cannot be literally translated from the so

11、urces language into the receptors because an idiomatic meaning cannot be understood by literally defining its component part. idioms are one of the important language elements. they are formed through longtime practice. they are not only the core and cream of a language but also an indivisible part

12、of it. they usually have their unique national and local cultural connotations which bear a deep national and local imprint that is unsubstantiated for. besides, idioms are the symbolic representation of a people; and it comprises their historical and cultural background as well as their approach to

13、 life and their ways of living and thinking.english, as the most active and widely used language, enjoys a vast idiomatic, basis which makes its learning very exciting and interesting with about 4,000 idioms used in the daily communication (li 1). similarly, there are also so many idioms in chinese

14、language. however, because of cultural differences, there exist great differences between english idioms and chinese idioms. as language learners, they should develop their cultural awareness and have a clear understanding of the cultural differences between chinese and english idioms in order to ac

15、hieve success in intercultural communication.ii. literature review on the studies of idiomsidioms are very useful for communication, e.g. alexander 1984; carter & mccarthy 1988; cooper 1999; irujo 1986b; nippold 1991points that: as an integral part of vocabulary learning, idioms constitute one o

16、f the most difficult areas of foreign language learning. so both theoretical and empirical foundations for study idiom have emerged (peter 45). people began to study idioms in early times, after world warwestern linguistics conducted their research on idioms based on three approaches: formal approac

17、hes, function approaches, psycholinguistic approaches. three western linguists bruce fraser, adam makkai rosamund moon conducted their research on idioms based on formal approaches. formal approaches are effective in describing or characterizing the structure, form and classes of idioms but generall

18、y fail to account for the range of lexical patterning. they often underplay the role of lexical patterning or the motivation underlying the development and usage of idioms (wang 53). besides, many scholars made their study from the perspective of function approaches, and the most understanding ones

19、are: j. strassler (1982), e. lattey (1986), c. cacciari & s. glucksberg (1991, 1993), j. r. nattinger (1992). according to function approaches, idiom use and comprehension is an integral part of everyday communication, and so it should not be surprising to find that it is also an integral part o

20、f discourse processing (wang 62). over the last few decades, psycholinguistic idiom research has been dominated representation and comprehension. these are the literal processing model (bobrow bell, 1973), the simultaneous processing model (swinney & cutler, 1979), the idiomatic processing model

21、 (gibbs, 1980), the configuration model (cacciari & tabossi, 1988), the idiom decomposition model (gibbs & nayak, 1989) and the conceptual metaphor model(gibbs, 1994)(wang 74).chinese scholars such as xiang guangzhong and yang getian have made a great amount of work on idioms ranging from th

22、e syntactic and semantic characteristics, origins, to their pragmatic values. generally speaking, their studies have been restricted only to one cultural background and linguistic description of the phenomenon. in chinese language, one would naturally associate “idiom” with“成语”. in fact, they are no

23、t the exact equivalent of each other. let's see dictionary definitions of the two terms at first. “chéngy or four-character idioms ( literally “to become part of the language”) are widely used in classical chinese, a literary form used in the chinese written language from antiquity until 19

24、19, and are still commonly used in vernacular writing today. classical chinese can be compared to the way latin was used in the western world in science until recently. according to the most stringent definition, there are about 5,000 chengyu in chinese, though some dictionaries list over 20,000. ch

25、engyu are mostly derived from ancient literature. the meaning of a chengyu usually surpasses the sum of the meanings carried by the four characters, as chengyu are often intimately linked with the myth, story or historical fact from which they were derived. as such, chengyu do not follow the usual g

26、rammatical structure and syntax of the modern chinese spoken language, and are instead highly compact and synthetic”(蒋 25). webster's third new international dictionary defines “idiom” as: idiom is an expression established in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either in grammati

27、cal construction (as no, it wasn't me.) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived as a whole from the conjoined meanings of its elements.to sum up, it can not be denied that those linguists mentioned above contributed greatly to the study of idioms and their writings will have a deep influen

28、ce on the future scholars studies of this subject. based on their findings, the author of this paper intends to explore the different cultural connotation between chinese and english idioms so as to help the communicators reduce pragmatic failures and achieve the goal of successful communication.iii

29、. idioms and culturea. definition of idiomsidioms are the important part of a language. as a language form, idioms has its own characteristic and patterns and are used in high frequency whether in written language or oral language because idioms can convey a host of language and cultural information

30、 when people chat to each other.what do idioms mean? different experts have different opinions and definitions to idioms. some people consider idioms as quintessence of a language. others regard them as treasury of a language. these statements in certain degree reflect the idioms' characteristic

31、s, but can't be regarded as idioms' definition.it is difficult to give a clear definition to idioms. first, people are often confused with their scope, content and form. second, experts have different opinions about how to divide idioms from narrow sense and general sense. what kind of langu

32、age expression really belongs to idioms? all of these causes bring difficulty to define a idiom. maybe owing to those causes, the word “ idiom” even hasn't been collected in such authorities reference books as modern chinese dictionary and cihai(辞海). however, some english dictionaries give “idio

33、m” a verity of definitions. for example, longman active english-chinese dictionary (1990) defines an idiom as “a phrase which means something different from the meanings of the separate words”. the concise oxford dictionary (2000) gives such a definition as “a group of words established by usage and

34、 having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words”. longman dictionary of contemporary english (1998) gives the definitive “a phrase which means something different from them meanings of the separate words from which it is formed”. and webster's new world dictionary of the ameri

35、can language (2nd college edition, 1972) gives this definition “an accepted phrase, construction, or expression contrary to the patterns of the language having a meaning different from the language or having a different from the literal”.according to different definition mentioned above idiom is a p

36、hrase or a group of words approved by people and has unique form. its meaning is different from the literal. in general sense, the scope of english and chinese idioms includes, set phrase common sayings, proverbs, idiomatic phrases, slang, a two-part allegorical and allusion and so on.b. brief intro

37、duction of cultureculture (from the latin culture stemming from colere, meaning “to cultivate”) generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity's significance and importance. different definitions of “culture” reflect different theoretical bases

38、 for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity (claire 10).there are many meanings of the word “culture”. sometimes, people say that people who know about music, act, and literature are cultured. however, for anthropologist, the word “culture” has a different meaning. to an anthropol

39、ogist the word “culture” means all the ways that a group of people think, feel, act, and dress. the longman dictionary of contemporary english gives such an explanation of culture: the customs, beliefs, art, music, and all the other products of human thought made by a particular group of people at a

40、 particular time.there is no standard definition of culture. culture is the way of life of a particular society or group of people, including patterns of thought, beliefs, behavior, customs, traditions, rituals, dress, and language, as well as art, music, and literature (websters new world encyclope

41、dia, 1992). culture is a shared pattern of belief, feeling and adaptation, which people carry in their minds (leighton & hughes, 1961). culture is an organized group of ideas, habits and conditioned responding shared by members of a society (linton, 1956). culture is a blueprint for living (kluc

42、kholm, 1944) based on the different definitions mentioned above, it could clearly be seen that culture is the way people live. it is the clothes people wear, the foods people eat, the languages people speak, the stories people tell, and the ways people celebrate.c. language and cultureit is known th

43、at language is closely related to culture and can be said as a part of culture. from a dynamic view, language and culture interact with each other and shape each other. language is the carrier of culture which in turn is the content of language. people can dig out cultural features from language and

44、 explain language phenomena with culture.idioms as a special form of language exist in both of them and carry a large amount of cultural information such as history, geography, and religion, custom, nationality psychology, thought pattern and etc, and therefore are closely related to culture. they a

45、re the heritage of history and product of cultural evolvement. consequently, people can know much about culture through studying idioms and in turn get better understanding of idioms by learning the cultural background behind them.for chinese students, english idioms are a stumbling block. it is ver

46、y possible that they often not only feel at a loss in understanding conversations because of a key idiom but also misuse idiomiv. comparative analysis of cultural implication of chinese and english idiomsas is mentioned above, language is a vehicle of the culture, and it cannot exist without culture

47、 its component. idioms are language structures of stability both in structure and meaning. rich cultural connotation underlies some idioms, which reveals their national characteristics. english and chinese cultures are totally different. their origins and development are not the same. chinese has a

48、close relation with the chinese culture. many chinese idioms can be translated when the chinese culture expressed by them are uncovered. however, english idioms are bound up with british and american cultures.a. differences in regions and geographyregional culture refers to the culture formed by the

49、 different region, living environment, and living condition. therefore, regional differences have effect on the expression ways of english and chinese idiomsbritain is an island country, which does not share land border with any other countries except the republic of ireland. in history, its navigat

50、ion industry has ever been the first one for a long time. so, british people have a special passion for water. in english language there are many idioms about sea and water, for example, “as close as an oyster”(守口如瓶), “cast an anchor to windward”(未雨绸缪), “at sea”(茫然), “to keep ones head above water”(

51、奋力图存) “to take the wind out of somebodys sail”(先发制人) , “tower ones sail”( 甘拜下风 ) , “in full sail”(全力以赴) , “sail under false colors”(欺世盗名) , “half sea over”(酒喝得太多), “fish begins to stink at the head”(上梁不正下梁歪) , “never offer to teach fish to swim” (不要班门弄斧) , “dull fish”(枯燥无味的人), “plain sailing” (一帆风顺)

52、 , “to trim ones sail to the wind” (见风使舵), “to be in the same boat” (同舟共济), “to burn ones boat” (破釜沉舟), “a big fish in a little pond”(山中无老虎，猴子称霸王).on the other hand, china is a nation of agriculture so chinese people value the land highly. for example, the han people who belonged to an agrarian soci

53、ety placed agricultural production at the top of the national agenda, regarding industry and commerce as the non-essentials. during the long history of farming, the chinese language has accumulated large numbers of farmers'' idioms, like 二人同心，黄土变金 (when two people are of the same mind, even

54、clay may be changed into gold) ，上无片瓦，下无寸土 (as poor as a church mouse) ，人不亏地，地不亏人(the masters footsteps fatten the soil) ，瓜熟蒂落 (things will be easily settled when conditions are ripe) ，瑞雪兆丰年 (a timely snow promises a good harvest) ，五谷丰登 (abundant harvest of all food crops), 种瓜得瓜，种豆得豆 ( as a man sows,

55、 so shall he reap ) ，四体不勤，五谷不分 (can neither do physical work nor distinguish rice from wheat).take the other instance, owing to mild and moisture weather in southern china, bamboo is a familiar plant for people there, so the idiom 雨后春笋 is used to describe the new things cropping up in great numbers.

56、 correspondingly, in english language, there is the idiom “spring up like mushrooms” to tell the same meaning, since in england mushroom in spring can be seen everywhere. besides the different idioms expressing the same notion in the two languages, there are a lot of idioms related to water in engli

57、sh and earth in chinese which have no corresponding counterpart in the other language, like the english idioms “to rest on ones oars”, “to keep ones head above water” and etc.b. differences in convention and valuesdifferent idioms originate from different customs and reflect them. folk custom, long-

58、established by human being, is a general term of habits, etiquette, convention and belief and a fixed cultural pattern approved by people. there are numerous english and chinese idioms about customs. however, owing to the custom difference, although the british people and chinese people describe the same thing, there is quite a complete difference. for example , the chinese often say “红白喜事”（red and white affairs）. they hold that weddings are red (happy) affairs while funerals are white (sad) events. “red” was derived from han peoples tr