摘　要

在英汉两种语言中存在着大量的动物习语，但由于中西方在地理环境、文化背景、宗教信仰、思维方法、价值观念、审美价值取向和社会心理等诸多方面存在很大的差异，因此中西各国对同一动物词赋予了不同的文化内涵，有的有着相同的象征意义，有的有着不同的象征意义，甚至有的相冲突。由于这些差异的产生，它会给我们的跨文化交流和翻译工作带来诸多不便。此外，动物习语承载着不同于汉族的民族文化特色和文化信息，它们与文化紧密相连，不可分割。本文把英汉各自动物习语的文化内涵进行对比研究，归纳了一些动物文化内涵的一同并提出几种主要的翻译策略。本文主要解决一些人们对于动物习语的错误理解，给学习英语或汉语的读者以及中外相互间的交流带来一些便利。

关键词：动物习语；文化内涵；翻译策略

Abstract

There are a lot of animal idioms in English and Chinese. In English idioms,the frequency of animal idioms is particularly high. When someone read English articles or in the communication with foreigners and other occasions, often encounter a lot of animals in set phrases. Due to the great differences in geographical environment, cultural backgrounds, religious belief, aesthetic values and so on in English speaking countries and Chinese speaking countries, so it is certain that there are different figurative meanings of animal words. Some figurative meanings in English and Chinese are the same, but some are different and even some are contradictory. This difference will bring much trouble to the cross-cultural communication and translation. In addition, animal idioms carry different amalgamations of ethnic cultural characteristics and cultural information, they are closely connected with culture and they are inseparable. This paper mainly summarizes the similarities and the differences of cultural connotation of animal idioms between English and Chinese and gives some translation methods about animal idioms. Recently, many researchers both in domestic and overseas studied and summarized on the cultural connotations of animal idioms and the translation strategies. This research will help people understand animal idioms through analyzing some differences so that it can bring the convenience to Chinese and western in communication.
                                         
Key words: animal idioms; cultural connotation; translation strategies 

1 Introduction
    Idioms are a kind of expression made up of two or more words. The sense of the combination cannot be explained in terms of its constituent parts．In other words, an idiom functions as a unit of meaning which cannot be predicted from the literal meaning of its member words. What’s more，the metaphorical meaning of an idiom has a much wider application which extends far beyond the literal meaning．This paper attempts to contrast and analyze the cultural connotations of animal idioms both in English and Chinese，by comparison and translation, people can know more about difference between Chinese and English. There is much Chinese humor refining, concise and comprehensive of slang.