Russian And Chinese Animal Metaphors

The metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but a cognitive phenomenon. It has become one of the most popular objects of linguistic studies nowadays. However, the animal metaphor study is a weak link in the system of metaphor study. Animal metaphor refers to the cultural association of an animal, a vehicle of a metaphor. Animals with distinct characteristics and images that are familiar among people are often used to describe the people or things with similar characteristics. The application of the metaphor theory can better illustrate cultural connotation of the animal-related vocabulary and further understand Chinese and Russian internal cultural mechanism. Animal, metaphor and culture are in direct line of succession. Understanding the affiliated cultural meaning of the animal with the help of metaphor can better explore the mechanism of cultural formation and cultural connotation, and thus, better promote cross-cultural communication. There are a lot of animal related vocabularies, idioms and slang in Russian and Chinese. The linguist’s circles hold the inference that human beings are animals. The human are closely linked with the animal from the womb to tomb. Therefore, it is of great significance to decode Russian and Chinese cultures by learning some animal-related words and relevant metaphor meaning.This thesis which is carried out from the perspective of metaphor adopts comparative analysis method and is targeted at animal image in Chinese and Russian. Through analyzing the similarities and difference of Russian and Chinese animal metaphorical meaning, the study aims to explore the internal linguistic factor and the external factor (deep-level socio-cultural factor) that give rise to such difference and similarity. In the end, practical value and pragmatic function of the animal metaphor study are proposed.