A Multi-dimensional Contrastive Study On Chinese And English Idioms

Language is an idea exchange tool for human beings, and whatever languages, it should be equipped with such commonness as abundant functions, simplified structures and so on. The commonness of languages promotes the development, progress and perfection of idioms—a special language form with its unique characteristics. Idiom is not only the essence of languages and their cultures, but also the most sensitive part in the development of languages. Therefore, idiom study enables us to learn every aspect of languages and cultures in a better and quicker way. Chinese and English are subjected to different language families; and idioms in such languages are the reflection of the life patterns, natural and social environment, values and thinking modes of the two nations. Thus, Chinese-English comparative study on idioms could help us unveil a clear picture of the two cultures, as well as deepen the theory on contrastive linguisticsThe three decades since Reform and Opening-up is a golden age for contrastive study of Chinese and English idioms in China with abundant research fruits. However, according to statistics, though large in amount, the research is lack of depth and not systematic enough. There is also a shortage for articles on Chinese and English idiom contrastive study. In this regard, the paper intends to conduct integrative contrastive analysis on the subject from seven perspectives, expecting to figure out the differences and similarities between the two in a systematic way and to summarize rules. In addition, this research is to contribute to the study on idioms and contrastive linguistics, as well as to provide assistance for idiom translation and language teaching.The first chapter of this paper gives a brief elaboration of the purpose, and research methods of the study. It also explains the philosophical basis of this study. This chapter serves as the theoretical foundation of the paper. Chapter 2 provides a detailed description on the definitions and key properties of Chinese and English idioms, making comparisons on their differences. Meanwhile, the history of idiom development, current status of Chinese and English idiom study have also been chronologically discussed.Subsequently, the paper goes into the part of multi-dimensional contrastive analysis, including the dimension of the formation and understanding of Chinese and English idioms, dimension of metaphor, dimension of national culture, dimension of ethnics, dimension of religious belief in human nature, dimension of thinking pattern and dimension of aesthetics.The third chapter of this paper compares Chinese and English idioms from the dimension of formation and understanding of idioms. The formation of Chinese idioms is significantly affected by seven aspects, namely Buddhism, Taoism, various ancient philosophical thoughts, celebrated literary works, ancient imperial examination system, agriculture economics and Chinese medicine culture. The formation of English idioms is greatly affected by Greek and Roman Myth, Holy Bible, Shakespearean dramas and other famous literary works. At the level of understanding, Chinese idioms focus more on semantic motivation while English idioms lay stress on semantic structure.Chapter four is the dimension of metaphor. This chapter first compares the differences of the major types of metaphors in Chinese and English idioms. Chinese has metonymy and megametaphor, which has no counterpart in English. Instead, there are metonymy and synecdoche in English. Thereafter, the paper compares the vehicle and metaphorical meanings. It discusses the phenomenon of complete consistency of Chinese and English idiom vehicles and metaphorical meanings, and yet focuses more on the linguistic performance of absolute disparity of vehicles and metaphorical meanings.Following is the contrastive study from the perspective of national culture, which is classified into 3 categories—national customs, natural environment and national psychology. Detailed analysis is conducted over the impact of them on the idiom systems of the two languages.The sixth chapter studies ethnics and morality. The definition and understanding of ethnics and morality in the two nations differs entirely. Chinese ethnics refers to the relationships among humans and the one between human and nature, together with the rules of dealing with such relationships; it is the principle and standards for people’s daily life and behaviors. However, in English, ethnics and morality, which has nothing to do with interpersonal relationships, denotes simply the moral standards that dominate or affect human behaviors. Such views on ethnics are reflected in idioms respectively.The dimension of religious belief in human nature constitutes the seventh part of this paper. The beginning of this part analyzes the influence on Chinese idioms of "human is born benevolent". It then analyzes the reflection of the Christian view of "human is born evil" on English idioms.The eighth chapter compares the differences of Chinese and English idioms in respect of the dimension of thinking pattern. Since the essence of the thinking pattern difference is the disparity of philosophy thinking, this chapter begins with the discussion of different Chinese and English philosophy thinking. After the first part, three types of differences are analyzed—they are imaginary thinking versus abstract thinking, intuitive thinking versus deductive thinking and integrated thinking versus individual thinking.The ninth chapter states the last dimension, aesthetics. In Chinese, "Comprehension" is the key of experiencing beauty, which reveals a strong character of sensibility. However, English national aesthetics is influenced by Western thinking pattern which has clear classification of aesthetics, concrete definitions in concepts, strong logical deduction and analysis. Chinese idioms show elegance in wording, delicacy in sentence construction, abundance in emotion, correspondence in structure, and coordination in intonation. English idioms, on the contrary, are mainly presented as harmonious in form, and such harmonious relation in "form" is directly exhibited in idioms.A significant purpose of comparative study, the purpose of this study as well, is to serve translation. Therefore, chapter 10 of this paper specifically discusses the contrastive study and idiom translation. Starting from two methods and two strategies of traditional translation theory, this chapter further divides Chinese and English idioms into six categories, discusses respectively the translation methods and strategies of such categories by proposing the concept of "reader-response theory".The last chapter is the conclusive part, which summarizes the content of this study; points out the drawbacks of the paper and provides some ideas for following research.