The Cultural Differences of Animal Words Between English and Chinese 英语毕业论文.docVIP

The Cultural Differences of Animal Words Between English and Chinese 【Abstract】　A language and its culture are closely connected with each other, in which the language can’t exist without its culture, and there must be brands of specific cultural connotations. This paper tries to make an analysis of English and Chinese animal words and phrases from the view of cultural distinctions, and tries to find out the differences between two of them. [1] With comparison, we can clearly see the cultural marks of animal words because of cultural differences. 【Key words】　animal culture; connotation; distinction Animal means a lot to us because we have been living together for so long a time, millions of years of closeness and sharing, which results in human complex feelings of fondness, sympathy or antipathy. There is no doubt that animals are the closest organisms of human beings in nature. Languages of all nations include Chinese and English have a lot of words donating to animals. With the development and evolution of human society, many animals have become domestic animals, and many others have become people’s pets. In some sense, animals have become part of people’s life. For those factors above, in the process of language development people have endowed animals with plentiful connotations and the process still goes on. People in different countries have different ideas about animals. Animal words got their connotations in different languages Changes in the meaning of animal words are determined by culture of which the substantial content is in turn reflected by the cultural meanings. Many English and Chinese culturally-loaded animal words differ in meaning owing to different cultural content, tradition and psychology, and the meaning differences are likely to invoke errors in comprehension and expression. [2] So these different connotations of animal words can reflect their culture differences and different value systems in different languages. As we all know, animal