On The Translation Of Animal Words-From A Cultural Perspective

This thesis discusses the established cultural connotation of animal words from various aspects and suggests the essential factors that should be taken into consideration in the translation of animal words.Throughout the history of the social evolution, man comes into contact with animals frequently, resulting in an interdependent relationship between man and animals. The images of animals root in the everyday life of all nations, forming unique animal culture of each nation. Therefore, a lot of words, idioms or expressions --- denoting animals or with vivid images of animals --- come into English and Chinese languages. The clever use of animal words is by no means scarce in everyday communication or literary works, which helps make English and Chinese vivid and lively in image, plain and expressive in character, and rich and strong in flavor.However, different nations do not treat all the animal words in the same way due to the different geographical environment, customs and habits, religion, etc. Complete overlap in symbol and cultural connotation of the same animal word in English and Chinese is by mo means common. Many animal words only overlap partially. Some animal words may have totally different or even opposite cultural connotations. Some discouraging cultural obstacles, such as culture clash, culture vacuum, etc. always lie in wait during the course of translating from one culture into another.Therefore, whether to keep the animal image and convey in the TT the cultural connotation of the ST, or to give up the cultural connotation and replace the animal image of the ST by another animal image with the same or similar symbol and cultural connotation, definitely, is one of the key problems that should be taken into consideration in the hope of doing a successful translation.In this study, many animal words are collected for the analysis of different cultures between English and Chinese. The thesis goes out of its way to explain that in the long run, a successful translation of the animal words results from the successful conveyance of the cultural connotation of the animal words into the target text.