英语动物词汇文化与汉语的比较分析 第4页
this divine animal. And from the “Genesis” of Dai Batamaga Pengshangluo(《巴塔麻嘎捧尚罗》), elephant was the creator, patron saint and primogenitor of Dai, it was the symbol of prosperity and peace, protecting Dai people from wars and disasters. Therefore, it’s common to see various statues, paintings and articles of elephants in Dai’s daily life.
Consequently, there are many expressions about elephant:“拔犀擢象” means “to promote talents”;“象牙之塔”（ivory tower）is“castle in the air; daydream”; “香象渡河” is a term in Buddhism to describe one who is intuitive and incisive; “黄金铸象” is to express one’ s respect to someone.
2.6 Raven (Crow)
Raven, or crow, is a complex bird, both in nature and mythology. They are seen as the heralds of doom or death because of their unfavorable image: their plumage is black, a negative color; they tend to eat carrion; swarms of ravens are commonly thought to circle above scenes of battles and disasters; they have a symbiotic relationship with man’s oldest enemy, the wolf. In many western traditions ravens represent darkness, destructiveness and evil. Both witches and the Devil were said to be able to take the shape of a raven.
Yet in many cultures, raven also represents enigmatic magic, the mystery of the unknown, creation, healing, and protection. In Europe, since ravens can be taught to speak, and have such a complex vocabulary of their own, they are connected symbolically to both wisdom and prophecy. Ravens are considered a solar symbol in Chinese mythology. The three legged ravens live in the sun, representing the sun’s three phases—rising, noon and setting. When the sunlight hits their glossy black feathers just right, they seem to turn silver. Before the Tang Dynasty, it is said that the ravens announce good news and harvest. Ravens are thought to be the divine birds making prophecy and people would worship and offer sacrifices to them. But later on, as time goes by, owing to their dark image and noisiness, ravens have been disgusted and repelled. Having a“crow beak”(乌鸦嘴) is a symbolic expression implies that one is being a jinx.
Some stories take raven or crow as a main role or symbol for certain thought. From Edgar Allen Poe’ s literary classic to the film of James O’ Barr’ s cult graphic novel “The Crow”, these birds still exert a powerful hold over the psyche of many people. The Goths who paint their faces with white make-up or the weekend warriors who expect Raven to take them to the Otherworld to meet the dead do not see the same animal as the farmers who set up groups of scarecrows in order to shoot large numbers of them every year in late spring. Here are two literature works that paint raven. (Samantha Fleming, 1998)
If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows.
— Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
They slept until the black raven, the blithe hearted proclaimed the joy of heaven.
—Beowulf (Susan Morgan Black)
Idioms about raven or crow includes “as the crow flies” (in a straight line); “hoarse as a crow” (very hoarse); “to crow about/over something” (to cry out or squawk about something to brag about something); “crow bait” (someone or an animal that is likely to die; a useless animal or person); and “to eat crow” (to display total humility, especially when shown to be wrong or to be shamed; to admit that one was wrong).
3 The Causes of Cultural Differences
3.1 Language Determinism
According to Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, our language structure determines our cognitive system, i.e. language helps mould our way of thinking and, consequently, different languages may probably express our unique ways of understanding the world. On the score of linguistic relativity, similarity between languages is relative, the greater their structural differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualization of the world will be. (胡壮麟，2006)
Culture and language are 原文请找腾讯752018766辣,文'论~文^网
http://www.751com.cn to see the world the way native speakers of that language see it, learning the ways in which native speakers communicate.
For instance, bat in Chinese is the symbol of auspiciousness, health and happiness, and this reflective meaning may be the result of the Chinese spoken form of bat bianfu, since the word fu is the homophone of fu (happiness or prosperity) in Chinese, then people use fu (bat) to indicate bliss. Hence, the paintings of bat and dear are quite popular in China, since lu (dear) is the homophone for lu (high position and handsome salary) and fulu is what people pray for.上一页 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] 下一页
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