Abstract:

There are a lot of animal idioms in both Chinese and English, because animals play a very important role in human’s daily life. Animal idioms as a part of idioms have been refined through the use of a language over a long period of time.  As the carrier of cultural information, they reflect the national characteristics vividly. Sometimes, the same animal words in the source language may have different meanings from those in the target language, because of different cultural backgrounds. So good knowledge of the cultural differences is very important for us in order to translate them correctly.
This paper introduces the relationship between culture and language; they influence and promote each other. Then it analyzes the different cultural backgrounds reflected in the animal idioms of the two languages from such aspects as social customs, historical allusion, geographical condition and living experiences. Social customs affect people’s behaviors and habits, and animal idioms are shaped and limited by it. Geographical condition and living experiences are also important elements which influence the formation of animal idioms. And a lot of animal idioms come from historical allusion. In the end, it summarizes some methods of translating animal idioms, including literal translation, free translation, substitution and addition. Literal translation is the first choice when the translation could be accepted by target readers, and when some animal idioms cannot be translated literally, we can use free translation, substitution and addition. To translate the animal idioms correctly, we should learn the cultural differences and choose right methods.

Key words: animal idioms; cultural difference; translation

摘  要：

在中英文中都含有大量的动物习语，因为动物在人类的生活中扮演着非常重要的角色。动物习语作为习语的一部分，是语言在长时间的使用中被提炼出来的。作为文化信息的载体，它们将民族特征形象生动地折射出来。然而，因为文化背景的不同，有时同一种动物所代表的意义在译入语和原文中的意义并不相同，所以很好地了解文化差异对我们正确地翻译这些习语来说很重要。
本文介绍了语言和文化之间的关系；它们相互影响相互促进。然后从习俗，历史典故，地理条件和生活经历这几个方面来分析这两种语言中不同的文化背景。社会习俗影响人们的行为和习惯，动物习语也受它的影响和限制，地理条件和生活经历也是影响动物习语形成的重要因素，并且有很多动物习语来自历史典故。然后总结了一些翻译动物习语的方法，包括直译法，意译法，替换法和增译的方法。当译文可以被目标读者所接受时，直译法是我们翻译时的第一选择，当一些动物习语无法用直译法翻译时，我们可以用意译法，替换法和增译法来翻译。为了正确地翻译动物习语，我们就要了解文化差异并选择正确的翻译方法。

关键词：动物习语；文化差异；翻译