从中西方文化差异看英语习语翻译(二)

1.Introduction 

Language and culture are interdependent and interactive, there is close correlation between them. It is well known that language is part of culture and the carrier of culture as well, which is also the symbol to embody culture. Translation links the exchange and transformation between Chinese and western languages. It is inevitable that cultural transformation should be carried out at the same time with language transformation. In a broad sense, culture can be divided into three levels: custom culture, system culture and psychology culture, while idioms are the essence of the three culture levels. Idioms are also called idiomatic phrases, broadly speaking, including set phrases, proverbs, sayings, aphorisms, slangs and vulgar languages etc. Idioms are the bright pearl of the language, which condense the rich experience of human beings. They can not only be seen in the literary works, but also widely used of daily life. Translation is the communication between the two different cultures, comparing with mastering two languages, it is more important to understand the two cultures, because idioms are only meaningful in the context of their culture. That is to say, the translation of idioms cannot be separated from the cultural background, otherwise, it will lose the value of the exchange of two languages.

For Chinese and English language, idioms are the collective wisdom that has been extracted from people’s long life. Idioms have a relatively fixed structure and unique meaning, the use of the general cannot easily change their structure or meaning. Some idioms are full of implication, which meanings are implied, but produce lots of imagination. Some idioms have obvious meanings, we can get the meaning directly. Some idioms contain a variety of meanings, depending on the specific context to determine the certain meaning. Idioms are the long-term accumulation of the folk form or folk activities, widely and vividly reflected the style of national customs and culture, which have certain connection with customs directly or indirectly. Both Chinese and English language has plenty of concise but comprehensive idioms. However, because of their differences in geography, history, religious beliefs, customs and other aspects of life, Chinese and English idioms have their own national characteristics. Therefore, take idioms as the objective, we can well learn the Chinese and western folk culture, exploring the expression difference, furthermore we can understand the relationship between culture and idioms. 

This thesis will discuss the English idiom translation from the perspective of  cultural differences, exploring different cultural features and translation strategies of the idioms between English and Chinese, with the aim of finding out some methods to dispose cultural difference between English and Chinese in practice by analyzing examples in detail.

2. Different Performance 

2.1 Difference of geographical environment

 Geographical environment cultural is formed by the geographical, natural conditions and environment. The formation of culture can not be separated from the natural geographical environment. Specific geographical environment has created a specific cultural, specific cultural has produced a specific expression of language. Because of the different geographical environment and native living environment, the Chinese and western people have different subjective feelings, which will naturally reflect in the difference of cultural significance. For example, Britain is a typical maritime country, navigation is developed, the British are well known as the “living in the sea of people”. The vast expanse of the ocean gives the nation a unique living environment, so that they can create a human civilization based on the ocean culture. The civilization has produced a wide range of sources for the formation of language, and the English language is influenced by many factors of ocean culture, so there are many idioms related to the sea and sailing related idioms, such as “as close as an oyster”, “back and fill”, “All is fish that comes to his net”. While China is a typical traditional agriculture country, produced a lot of idioms related to agriculture, for example, cattle occupies an important position in the agricultural society, since Chinese ancient times, cattle was used to cultivate, farmers stayed long time with cattle, so there are a lot of idioms related to cattle, like ”as many as the hairs on an ox”, ”as strong as an ox”, “coolly defy a thousand pointing fingers, head bowed like a willing ox”. In addition, some other agricultural related, such as “spend money like water”, “al the rats desert the sinking ship”, “arrogant or overbearing”, “choose big fish in a little pond”, “pull one’s oar in”, “in full sail” and so on. Some examples for another aspect, because of the different geographical position, the natural climate is different. Chinese climate belongs to continental climate, the average temperature of summer in most parts is over 30 degree Celsius. Chinese commonly used “赤日炎炎似火烧” “骄阳似火”to describe the summer. Britain belongs to the typical oceanic climate, warm in winter and cool in summer, the average temperature is 20 degree Celsius, there is no obvious difference between spring and summer. So in English the summer is often described as “lovely”, ”gentle”, ”beautiful” and other cultural semantic. Shakespeare also wrote down “For summer and his pleasure wait on thee, 

and, thou away, the very birds are mute.” 

2.2 Historical Historical difference of China and the West