| Metaphor is regarded as one of the most basic ways of thinking and cognitionmethods, while animal has been closely related to human beings since ancient times.This thesis takes animal related idioms as the carrier and the conceptual metaphortheory as the theoretical framework. It aims to reveal the reasons that causesimilarities and differences between Chinese and English animal metaphors in idiomsthrough an intensive comparison and study. Wishing the findings will of some help tothe teaching and translation of animal related idioms.The first chapter mainly expounds the settings, the significance of the thesis,together with literature review of idioms，metaphor and animal metaphor home andabroad. The second chapter introduces the definition, classification and characteristicof idioms，conceptual theory and the animal metaphor theory. The third chapteranalyzes the metaphorical meaning of six kinds of animals, including “dog”,“cat”,“pig”,“bull”,“horse”,“sheep” in Chinese and English idioms. In both languages,most animal metaphors are negative valued and based on the metaphoricalmechanism of “HUMAN BEINGS ARE ANIMALS”. However, the metaphoricalmeanings of the same animal vary in Chinese and English, whereas the samemetaphorical meaning connected to different animals respectively. Chapter fourdiscusses the causes of similarities are the same features of animals as well as thesimilar cognitive process of human beings. The reasons for differences are thedifferent natural environment, history, religion and literature works in both cultures.Chapter five provides several teaching principles and strategies for the application ofanimal metaphor in the teaching of Chinese idiom. The last chapter is the conclusionand shortcomings of the research. |
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