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3.4 Identical Animal Words Sharing Different Connotations in Two Culture 8
3.4.1 Some Animal Words with Commendatory Meaning in English, but with Derogatory Meaning in Chinese 8
3.4.2 Some Animal Words with Commendatory Meaning in Chinese, but with Derogatory Meaning in English 9
3.5 Different Animal Words Sharing Similar Cultural Connotations 10
3.6 Blankness of Animal Words in English and Chinese 11
3.6.1 Unique Animal Words in English 11
3.6.2 Unique Animal Words in Chinese 12
4 Factors Influencing Different Cultural Connotations 13
4.1 Geographical Influence 13
4.2 Historical Influence 13
4.3 The Influence of Religion and World view 14
5 Conclusion 15
References 17
A Comparison of Cultural Connotation between English and Chinese Animal Words
1 Introduction
Throughout the history of cultural evolution, human and animals come into frequent contact that has formed an interdependent relationship. Images of animals root in the people’s daily life of all countries, reflecting unique culture of each community. It is widely known that language is the carrier of culture and language is greatly relevant to culture. Animal words which comprise titles of animal, phrases and proverbs including animal names, occupy a significant and extraordinary status in language. Obviously, Chinese and English, as two popular languages in the world, contain a lot of words relating to animals naturally, and due to different social background, the connotations of animal words in one language do not coincident with those in another. The brilliant use of animal words is by no means scarce in daily communication or English teaching, which make English and Chinese more vivid and lively in image, clear and expressive in character, affluent and rich in flavor. Therefore, many experts and scholars in linguistics, culture, translation, teaching and so on focus increasing attention on animal words. Undoubtedly, the benefits that the effective understanding and use of animal words would account for human beings are immeasurable.
2 Literature Review
At present, it is well-known that vocabulary is the foundation of language, because “words make us human” and “when you are out of words, you are out of life” (Fishwick, 1999 p.32). As the cornerstone in language, words are extensively related to culture. It reflects special social culture, different background and so on.
Hu (1998) said that words are flexible and usable components containing the largest information such as customs and thought patterns. Dating back to ancient time, animals have kept the closest relationship with human beings so that many animals entail symbolism in people’s mind. Also, people tend to associate their feelings and emotions, even happenings and natural phenomena with various animals. Although at the same time, different people have different attitude towards the animal words. For example, a cricket, in Chinese culture, means loneliness and melancholy. As a result, people in china dislike this insect. Nevertheless, a cricket symbolizes happiness and luckiness in western countries, so the English speakers like this insect.
In addition, animal words have gradually got their established connotations in almost all human languages with the growing intercultural process. As languages with long history, English and Chinese have ample animal words. So we have enough reasons to convince that the vigorous interests are now replacing the earlier neglect of vocabulary in theory and research (Nation, 1990).