摘要

生肖是我国文化中的重要组成部分，是极具特色的文化元素之一。生肖文化渗透在中国人的生活中，也渐渐被西方人所认识。但由于诸多因素，如：历史、习俗、价值观念、宗教信仰等，生肖词的翻译至今仍有较大争议。本文首先对前人研究结果进行整理分析；其次辨析翻译对象目前的翻译结果，尤其针对争议较大的几个生肖词，包括鼠、牛、兔、龙、鸡、猪；再次由于生肖是中国特色文化之一，辨析中西文化特色，以求在文化视角下的翻译有所依据；最后结合目前翻译界的翻译策略，列举直译、意译等翻译方法，并结合语境等，提出个人对生肖词翻译方法的意见及翻译建议。

关键词：生肖；文化视角；翻译方法

Abstract
The Chinese Zodiac is part of the important Chinese culture and plays a special role in this area. Not only in eastern but among western people’s daily life, the Chinese Zodiac has been well known all around world. However, because of the difference between the different culture, tradition, view of value and religion. The translation of the Chinese Zodiac words still has controversy. First, this thesis analysis the predecessors’ research results; Second, it analysis translation object’s current results, especially in view of some current controversial Zodiac words’ translation, including “鼠”, “牛”, “兔”, “龙”, “鸡” and “猪”; Third, because Chinese Zodiac is Chinese characteristic culture character, it analysis Eastern and Western culture, in order to better analysis cultural perspective of the translation; Fourth, it lists some translation strategies and methods, which are literal translation, free translation and literal translation with notes; Finally it puts forward personal opinions on Chinese Zodiac words’ translation methods and the better English words for the Zodiac’s words.

Key words： Chinese Zodiac; cultural perspective; the method of translation

1.Introduction
Chinese Translators Journal （《中国翻译》） published a paper about the translation of the Chinese Zodiac words by Liu Baiyu（刘白玉 2010:72）in 2010 4th. Later, in 2011 3rd,  Li Guisheng（李贵升 2011:84）and Zhang Defu（张德福 2011:84）published another paper and pointed out some different ideas based on Liu’s. How to translate the Zodiac words into proper English has been a problem. Many experts have deep consideration about this problem, however it still has controversy. In one book（《最新实用汉英辞典》）（蒋红红 2004:124）, the twelve animal words is translated to “the mouse, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the sheep, the monkey, the fowl, the dog and the pig”; while in another book（《汉英词典》）（蒋红红 2004:124）, they are translated to “rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rock, dog and hog”; but in the dictionary（《新时代汉英大词典》）（蒋红红 2004:124）, they are “the rat, the ox, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the sheep, the monkey, the rooster, the dog and the pig”. So different dictionaries have the same or different translation types of the Zodiac words, which comes from the ideas of different editors or the scholars.