A Comparative Study of English and Chinese Animal Proverbs 1
A Comparative Study of English and
Chinese Animal
Proverbs I. Introduction In Longman Modern English Dictionary, proverb is “a brief familiar maxim of folk wisdom, usually compreed in form, often involving a bold image and frequently a jingle that catches the memory.” A proverb, which succinctly sums up human experience and observation of the world, states a general truth and gives advice or warning.A proverb, often involving a bold image, musical rhythm and compreed form, can bring vividne to the readers and so they are easy to remember and spread.Proverbs are summing up of folk wisdom, they are usually pithy, and have universal appeals.People love to pick up proverbs when they try to reason things out and the proper use of proverbs can make their views more convincing.Proverbs are the crystal of the national wisdom.They are an important part of a national language and they appropriately reflect the relation between culture and language.They have been connected closely with the national characteristics ever since their coming into being and in their development.It is generally acknowledged that different peoples have great differences in their cultures.But since different peoples live on the same earth with roughly similar needs and some of them have even experienced similar social development stage, their experiences, emotional reflection and observation of the world are in many aspects similar.This shows that different peoples may have cultural generality besides cultural difference.Proverbs, as the cream of a language, inevitably carry the imprint of cultural difference and generality.The difference and generality respectively lead to the diimilarities and similarities between English and Chinese animal proverbs and making a comparative study of them is of great significance.
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II.
Animals Proverbs with Identical Meanings Some animal proverbs in English and Chinese are identical in meaning.The proverbs in this category are limited in number.They are the result of either coincidence or translation loans from one language to another.These proverbs are not hindered by national boundaries or culture barriers, instead they have take on universal significance.The following are some examples.1.English: An a is known by his ears./ Chinese: 见耳识驴，听话知愚。 2.English: It is a sad house where the hen crows louder than the cock.
Chinese: 牝鸡司晨，家之不详。
Many factors have contributed to the emergence of fully corresponding pairs in English and Chinese proverbs.Firstly, although different nations live in varied natural environments and diversified geographic conditions, they still share quite a lot in common.They have more or le the same species of animals.And the common ground of human cultures is larger than the individual feature of each culture.Although, people’s concrete ways of life are varied in different places, the fundamental ways of living and thinking are the same for the whole human race.Secondly, owing to culture exchange, translation loans are borrowed from each other, which are not limited to the root ideas but sometimes include the “clothing of the idea”.As a result, some proverbs with identical animal image come into existence in different language, for instance, “He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount” and “骑虎难下”.III.Animal Images with Different Meanings in Proverbs
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Some English and Chinese proverbs share the same images, and people take it for granted that they should have the same connotation, but actually, they contain different or even opposite meanings.For example, “It is a good horse that never stumbles.” and “好马不失蹄”.In this example, the English proverb “It’s a good horse that never stumbles”, is easy to be translated into Chinese “好马不失蹄”.In fact, the English proverb means even a good horse will stumble, so the right translation should be “好马也有失蹄时”.In the following part, the reasons for misunderstandings and the different choice of animal images will be clarified.A.Reasons for misunderstandings
Firstly, sometimes, the old use of grammar remains in the proverbs, and it may mislead our comprehension.The preservation of the old grammatical structure “it’s...that...” is similar to the modern structure in form, but opposite in meaning.The misunderstanding of the English proverb “It’s a good horse that never stumbles” as Chinese proverb “好马不失蹄” is due to this old grammatical structure.Secondly, when people hold different views and attitudes to animals, and their different worldviews toward the same situations, the same animal images may have different or even opposite meanings in different culture, and proverbs containing the same animal images will poibly have different meanings.The seemingly corresponding English and Chinese proverbs may have different connotations.For example: “Dog eats dog” and “狗咬狗”.“Dog eats dog” is always regarded as “狗咬狗”.But actually “Dog eats dog” refers to the phenomenon that people hurt those of the same group, while “狗咬狗” means bad people fight with bad people, so the two proverbs mean differently.
B.Factors influencing the choice of animal images in proverbs
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The languages have some universality, but more importantly, they have their own culturally specific features.The culturally specific features are closely related to their religion, special geography, literature and psychology.1.Different religious beliefs Different nations usually believe in different religion.Thus proverbs of diverse nations surely expre various religious beliefs.In the west, Britain and America are Christian countries with a long history.And Christian as the main belief of them has already taken roots in their lives for ages.Christians believe in the God.The God is the unique and supreme god, while people are born with a sin, and are the same and equal in the face of the God, so the common people respect and worship the God, but disregard the majesty.“A cat may look at a king” reflects this kind of thought.
Furthermore, there are some animals endowed with different religious meanings.In Christianity the serpent is the symbol of devil and Satan, while the lamb is the symbol of the God’s people and timidity, and the dragon is the symbol of evil and danger.Serpent enticed Eve to steal fruit of Tree of conscience and she then shared with Adam.In the end they two were kicked out of the Garden of Eden.So in English proverbs, snake has a meaning of cunning.In China, Buddhism has been spread over one thousand years, and the Buddhist culture has been melt into the daily life of the Chinese for a long time.As a result, it is very common that quite a number of Chinese believe in Buddhism.Some Chinese proverbs are about Buddhism.There are proverbs about the strict social claes and roles.Here are some examples.狗肉烧酒穿肠过，佛在心中留。(Buddha in heart, wine and meat will pa through intestines.) 狗咬吕洞宾，不识好人心。(Don’t snap and snarl at me when I’m trying to do my best for you.)
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2.Different geographic conditions Geographically England is located in the Western Hemisphere, while China lies in the Eastern Hemisphere, thus England and China have different climate.They form different living styles.England is an island country, so most Englishman make livings by fishery or navigation.Chinese formed their living style----farming and stock rising.Therefore, there are a great many different proverbs.Firstly, there are some animal proverbs about the special climate in England. If the cock crows on going to bed, he’s sure to rise with a watery head.(公鸡傍晚叫，早晨有雨到。) March comes in with adder heads, and goes out with peacock tails.(三月来如猛狮，去如羔羊。) Furthermore, fishery and navigation are of great importance to English people and it is no wonder that plenty of English proverbs are on fishery or navigation, and a lot on fishes.But in China, the fish does not carry so many national meanings.The following are some English fish proverbs.All is fish that comes to his net.(进网都是鱼。) Fish begins to stink at the head.(鱼烂头先臭。) 3.Different literary backgrounds Different nations have different literature, which makes up particular cultural backgrounds of proverbs.On the basis of this, a great many proverbs are often simple in structure but deep in meaning.In order to grasp and translate their deep meanings accurately, we must be clear about the literature.In Chinese there are a lot of animal proverbs originated from various claical works, such as: 二者不可兼得，舍鱼而取熊掌.
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On the other hand, English proverbs also take in the quinteence of many literal works and are in fact the well-known remarks of some famous writers, such as some proverbs of Shakespeare: All cats love fish but fear to wet their paws.(欲吃龙肉，又怕下海。) Patience perforce is medicine for a mad dog.(不得已的忍耐是疯狗的药方。) In brief, both China and English have their diverse and colorful literature, which is vividly reflected in their proverbs and as well have constituted the historical and cultural backgrounds of their proverbs.Thus whenever we translate proverbs, it is helpful for us to look into histories and origins of the proverbs and make proper judgments according to the backgrounds.4.Different psychologies Although mankind shares many life experiences and thoughts, and different cultures occasionally have some cultural overlaps, yet on the whole different cultures have different psychology, and people of different cultures hold different attitudes to the same animals.Here we will take animals for examples to explain the different psychology in proverbs of different nations.With the development of human society, many animals play an important role in human life and some of them have become a particular kind of symbolism in people’s mind, and animals in various countries symbolize diverse meaning.The connotations of animals in proverbs of one language do not coincide with those in other languages.The different connotative meanings which the animal words carry in different countries are called cultural implication of the word by the famous Chinese profeor Wang Dechun, a noted linguist at home.National cultural meaning is an eential signified meaning of the words tinged with an ethnic group’s cultural connotations.In English and Chinese animal images, both similarities and differences exist in national cultural meanings.However the diimilarities are absolute while the similarities are relative.Both universality and individuality lie in different cultural connotations loaded in English and Chinese
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animal proverbs.IV. A brief Introduction of the Proverbs Involved in Several Kinds of Animals A.Proverbs of the dragon (龙) In Chinese and western culture, dragon is the animal existed in the myths and legends.In China dragon is the symbol of auspicious honor.It is a bright contrast that in English dragon is fundamentally evil and cruel.In Chinese culture, dragons symbolize good luck, authority, noble, and prosperity.We Chinese are proud to call ourselves “descendants of the dragon”.In the feudal society, dragon is the emblem of the emperor; the emperors thought they were real dragons and the sons of the heaven.Today dragon is still supreme in the heart of Chinese people.China is called “Oriental Dragon”; dragon is regarded as the totem of the Chinese nation.There are a lot of proverbs about dragon, such as “龙生龙，凤生凤”, “强龙压不过地头蛇”.All these proverbs show that dragon (龙) is a great part in the Chinese culture.However, in English people think that dragon is the representative of the evil, a ferocious monster.The distinctions between Chinese and English culture makes the same animals have different connotation and the choices of animal images are completely different.As a result of this, when we want to use English to expre the “龙”, we must take this kind of distinction into consideration.“亚洲四小龙” should be translated as “four tigers” instead of “four dragons”.B.Proverbs with word “bat” (蝙蝠) In English-speaking countries, folks think bat as an evil animal and it is often used with the dark and evil force.So in English, proverbs with word “bat” commonly contain derogatory sense.In “as blind as bat”, it becomes a typical image of blind person with eyes open.Bat also has evil meanings of being absurd and odd.We use
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“have bats in the belfry” or “crazy as a bat” to say that a person is off one’s mind.In the traditional Chinese culture, bat (蝙蝠) is homophonic with “福” which means happine, luck, and bleing.Therefore, old bat woodcarving and embroidery with bats put up people’s wish of bleing for auspicious and happy life.C.Proverbs of sheep and goats(羊) Because of the influence of The bible, the images of sheep and goat are as like as an apple to an oyster.Proverbs of goats are usually derogatory.“Play the goat” is to act as a fool.In The bible, a shepherd tried to distinguish sheep and goats, and he placed sheep right and put goat in the other side in that wild goats often infiltrated the flock to lure sheep.So that the proverb “separate the sheep from the goats” is to divide good or useful people from bad or usele ones.In the eye of Chinese, they two belong to the same species, and don’t any special implied meanings.The UK is a graziery-developed country and people there prefer to wool products.Owing to this, many wool proverbs spring up.Here are some examples: “pull the wool over one’s eyes”which means using people’s innocence to make a cheat into being, “go for wool and come home shorn”that has the meaning of overshoot oneself and “much cry and little wool” the Chinese meaning of which is “雷声大，雨点小”.D.Proverbs of the owl (猫头鹰) Owl is a clever and witty bird with wisdom, earnest and other culture connotations.Words, as “owlish” and “owlishly”, often apply to describe a man to be smart, resourceful and serious.Also in children’s books and comics, owls are often very intelligent.When dispute appears, the animals will ask owls to coordinate when there is an emergency.
But in China, it is totally different.Chinese think that owl is linked with superstitious believes, and people are afraid of hearing their hoot because of a faith
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that man will be unfortunate when meeting owls.So a Chinese proverb “猫头鹰进宅，好事不来” means adversity is upcoming.An American woman came to China for the first time and knew little about what Chinese thought of owls.She loved owl pins very much and often wore them.She found people around her often point at her when she wore owl pins.Moreover, some of them even stopped to ask him why she wore owl pins which greatly puzzled her.Only when a Chinese told her about the superstitious thought of owl in Chinese eyes, did she stop wearing it in China.E.Proverbs of the cat (猫) The westerner is one of the important members of the “pet culture”.Cat is used to describe the female, model’s stage steps on the runway named catwalk.“Old cat” is old woman of bad temper.“Barber’s cat” is a person with a starved look.“Copy cat” often said by children is a metaphor to kids copying others.There is a proverb that “when the cat is away, the mouse will play”.It tells people that when a power is absent, others will lawle and naughty.Cat in Chinese does not have any similar uses in proverbs.But “山中无老虎，猴子称大王” have the same meaning with this proverb.There are much more examples, the following examples are widely used.1) English:A cat may look at a king./ Chinese:小人物也有权利
2) English:All cats are grey in the dark./ Chinese:不因为美丑就判断别人的好坏 3) English:That’s like putting the cat near the goldfish bowl./ Chinese:引狼入室
Even though cat occasionally exists in Chinese, some cat proverbs are still in use.“猫改不了吃腥” is commonly applied to a person who can not change his long-standing habits.“吃猫食” is just eating like bird.
F.Proverbs of the dog (狗)
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Dog is a word that often used in proverbs and we should pay great attention to.As a matter of fact, people in western countries loves dog more than us.In these countries people loves to keep dogs and they usually call themself or others dog with no meaning of dog.Also dogs are titled with a laudatory name as “man’s best friend” in Britain and America.So in English there are many proverb of dogs such as “Every dog has its day”, “Barking dog seldom bite”, “Dog does not eat dog”, “you are a lucky dog”.But in Chinese, many proverb with dogs have bad meanings and often aociate with disgusting things such as “狗改不了吃屎”, “狗咬吕洞宾，不识好人心”, “挂羊头，卖狗肉”.All these show that people have no good feelings to dog in the past.Some employers deny people born in the year of the dog.These proverbs contain a derogatory meaning against dogs, and reflect people’s bad impreion to the dog.V.The Principles in the Translation of Animal Proverbs
English and Chinese proverbs are from various sources, and they give information about their culture on many social subjects, so there is neceity of a study for translation of English and Chinese proverbs to acquire more information of different nations.Translation is also becoming increasingly important as a medium of international communication.A faithful translation of English and Chinese proverbs will attract the target language readers not only for its vivid and expreive language, but also for much interesting information.Therefore, the purpose of proverb translation isn’t only to absorb and introduce the vivid expreions, but also to enrich the target readers with the culture of other nations and to learn the philosophy and views of the world and life.For this purpose, translators shall pay great attention to keeping the sense and flavor of the original and acquire the highest degree of cultural exchange.The best translation shall contain both the original image and the connotation.Traditionally, there are two major translation methods: literal translation and free
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translation.Literal translation focuses on the source language, referring to the translation based on the form, while free translation focuses on the target language, referring to the translation based on meaning.Which method shall be more important, and be put at the first place? Translators have been arguing over the question for a long time.Though there are not set rules for translating animal images, translation principles does exist.They are cultural equivalence and validity principles.A. Cultural equivalence principle As far as the cultural transmiion is concerned, it implies conveying as much as poible the original cultural information in the translated texts in order to achieve the highest degree of language-culture correspondence between the source language and target language.“Equivalent effect” in translation includes linguistic equivalence, stylistic equivalence and socio-cultural equivalence.With the development of linguistics and the increasing degree of communication between different cultures, the socio-cultural equivalence is becoming more and more important.The translators are not satisfied with only transmitting the meaning, but they want to have an integration of both meaning and form.They want to introduce the original form and meaning to foreign land.In terms of transmitting cultural images, cultural equivalence includes equivalence of both the superficial form and the deep cultural content.In image translation, to convey the form and the content determines whether the superficial information or the deep connotative information of a cultural image is conveyed.The best way to convey cultural images is to combine the form equivalence and the content equivalence.However, cultural equivalence does not mean strict or rigid adherence to the original images.If the formal equivalence and the content equivalence cannot be achieved at the same time, the translation should be flexible, and they could give
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priority to the content equivalence, and try their best to convey the cultural information contained in the formal image.Otherwise, the rigid adherence to the original form will not get cultural equivalence in the true sense.The focus is how to change forms properly in reproducing similar effects so as to convey cultural information to the largest extent.B.
Validity principle As far as image transmiion is concerned, the validity principle means the conveyed cultural information must be valid when a translator tries his best to accomplish cultural equivalence principle.The validity principle requires in the first place translators should neither over-domesticate nor over-foreignize cultural images, so as to avoid imagery confrontation and achieve imagery acceptability.The validity principle and cultural equivalence principle are interrelated with and interdependent on each other, but the validity principle is more concerned with the target language readers.If the translated image makes no sense to the target language readers or causes misunderstanding to them, all the work done by the translator is futile.For example: “It’s raining cats and dogs”.If we translate it into “天上下猫和狗了”, the translation will be absurd to Chinese people.Although the original images are kept, the translation is invalid, so the better translation may be the deletion of the original images: “天上下着瓢泼大雨”.In conclusion, the translation of cultural image is complex.We shall try our best to knit the foreignization and domestication flexibly, and follow the principles of cultural equivalence and validity.VI.
Conclusion
The translation of proverbs and animal images is really a complex and delicate work.It should be kept in mind that the main purpose of translation is to transmit different cultures.In translation, the traits of culture shall be remained as much as
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poible, and the two principles of cultural equivalence and validity should be followed.As translators, we shall try our best to find the most appropriate translation which is not only faithful to the meaning, but also keeps the original cultural colors.There is not a settled way as to what kind of translation is the best because the culture is forever changing with the time.The formerly strange proverbs may be considered as natural with the widening communication and rapid globalization.Therefore the translation of proverbs shall always catch up with the time.Translation should also be in harmony with the kind of the writing and purpose of writing.Also, the translation of the same proverb and the same animal image may be different if the context changes, sometimes original colors shall be kept, but sometimes they should be deleted.
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Acknowledgements First, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all the respected profeors and teachers from whom I have learned not only the knowledge but also the way of related disciplines, and serious attitude to do research work.
Second, I would like to expre my hearty appreciation to my teacher Feng yan and Liao suyun for their rigorous and expert direction.Their effective guidance research enabled me to implement the work smoothly.Their insightful comments on the study have been both encouraging and helpful.Their constant help and care have always inspired me to learn more.Their kindne also offers me lots of good materials.
Thirdly, I would like to thank the librarians in our campus library, for they have helped me to find various reference books needed for my study.
