The cultural connotation of the Chinese symbolic animals and the proper translation of animal words 十二生肖动物词汇的文化内涵及翻译.doc

The cultural connotation of the Chinese symbolic animals and the proper translation of animal words 十二生肖动物词汇的文化内涵及翻译 Abstract This thesis discusses the cultural connotation of the Chinese symbolic animals and the proper translation of animal words. Chinese symbolic animals are part of Chinese culture. Therefore, the meanings of Chinese symbolic animals in Sino-Western cultures reflect the similarities and differences in the two cultures. Because of the different geographical environment, customs and habits, religion, etc, different nations treat the animal words in different ways. Among these Chinese symbolic animals, some animal words may have totally different cultural connotations in English and Chinese, some have similar culture connotations, and some different animals may have the same connotation in the two cultures. Various cultural obstacles often exist in cross cultural translation. Therefore, cultural connotations should be taken into consideration in order to produce a successful translation, and a successful translation also needs the proper use of different translation methods. So in the process of translating some animal idioms, the author also talked about three different translation methods: literal translation, free translation and substitution. In this study, Chinese symbolic animals are illustrated to analyse the different cultures between English and Chinese. The thesis also concludes that a successful translation of animal words results from the correct understanding of the cultural connotations of the animal words. Key words: Chinese symbolic animals; cultural connotations; translation 中文摘要 本文探讨了十二生肖动物词汇的文化内涵以及它们适当的翻译。 十二生肖是中国文化的组成部分，因此，这十二种动物的比喻意义反映了中西文化的异同。由于地理环境、风俗习惯、宗教等因素的不同，各国对动物词汇的理解并不相同。 在这十二种动物中，一些动物词在中西方有着完全不同的文化内涵，一些则是相似的，还有些不同的动物在两种文化中有着相似的文化内涵。在跨文化翻译中往往存在各种文化障碍。 因此，要实现成功的翻译，必须要把动物词的文化内涵考虑进去, 同时成功的翻译也需要运用恰当的翻译方法。所以作者在动物习语的翻译中也谈到了三种翻译方法：直译法，意译法和替代法。 本文通过对十二生肖动物词汇的翻译，分析了中西文化的差异。可以断定对文化内涵的正确理解是成功翻译动物词汇的前提。 关键词：十二生肖；文化内涵；翻译 Contents Ackn