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1.2 Organization
In the first chapter, this paper will introduce the research background, research question, organizing structure, general research methods and significance of the study. Afterwards, the second chapter will focus on the literature review based on the former studies. The following chapter is intended to describe the research methodology and process in detail. The fourth will illustrate evidences from linguistic perspective concerning the research question. Discussion of the data and other information collected during the research will be placed in the fifth chapter. Finally, the last chapter will conclude the whole paper and further the possible application of the study.
1.3 Significance of this Paper
Lots of studies have been carried out on the meaning differences among animal-related idioms of different nations as well as the possible contributing factors, which have greatly raised people’s awareness of the notion that learning a language is learning a culture behind it as well. However, owing to the substantial number of the total animal-related idioms, most studies just take the whole of animals as object, and the corpus is established without clear pertinence towards a certain kind of animal, both resulting in the too general conclusion. Besides, most researches only emphasize the differences in the meaning of a-same-animal-centered idioms in different nations, and tend to analyze factors in historical and cultural aspects alone.
As comparison, this study is conducted based on the very object “dog”, on which the corpus has been constructed. It can lead this research into a deeper layer and even help to conclude the emotional differences of all animal-related idioms as a whole. Meanwhile, the study views the differences between animal-related idioms in Chinese and English from a new perspective¬——emotion, and puts a lot of effort to explore the factors in linguistic field.
With regards to the research methodology, based on the literature review and the specific corpus, this study will take on a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Questionnaire will offer the quantitative data, and personal interview will not only collect qualitative information, but make up the shortage of fixed questionnaire as well.
2 The Previous Studies of Animal-related Idioms
Just as stated above, many studies have been done on the differences between animal-related idioms in Chinese and English, basically on the differences in the meaning concerning a same animal key word.
2.1 Characteristics of Idioms
As an unavoidable part in second language acquisition, idioms and their complexity have received much attention from both ESL learners and relative experts like Cynthia (1992) and Xiong Yunfang (2002). “Idioms, in a general sense, include phrases, proverbs, mottoes, colloquialisms, slang and allusions (Zhang Ruolan, 2003: 90).” It is a certain language tradition which is formed through people’s living practice over a very long time. Therefore, it is ethnic-unique and cannot be understood by foreign learners easily. “Figurative language, independent meaning, fixed collocation and harmonious rhyme are the common characteristics of idioms (Zhang Ruolan, 2003: 91).”
2.2 Differences in the Meaning
Generally, “there are three kinds of relations between the meaning of a certain animal in English and Chinese animal-related idioms（Zhou Ying，2012: 23）”. The first kind is half-correspondence, illustrated as the “goose” in “kill a goose that lays the golden eggs” and the “鸡” in “杀鸡取卵”. Then is the full correspondence, as the “wolf” in “a wolf in a sheep’s clothing” and “狼” in “狼子野心(wild ambition)”. The most common one is the third kind——non-correspondence. Take “dragon” as an example. In Chinese, dragon symbolizes the emperor, who is a son of Heaven in ancient time; nowadays, dragon represents luck, power and loyalty, just as shown in the idioms like “望子成龙(to place high expectation on one’ s child)”. In English, however, the dragon is viewed as an inauspicious monster. Nearly all expressions connected with “dragon” have negative meaning.