A Comparison of Cultural Connotations between Chinese and English Animal Words

Throughout the history of the social evolution, man and animals come into frequent contact that forms an interdependent relationship between man and animals. The images of animals root in the everyday life of all nations, forming unique animal culture of each nation. Therefore, Chinese and English, as the two languages which spoken by the most people in the world, naturally contain a lot of words relating to animals, and because of different history and culture, the connotations of animal words in one language do not coincide with those in another. The clever use of animal words is by no means scarce in everyday communication or literary works, which helps make English and Chinese vivid and lively in image, plain and expressive in character, and rich and strong in flavor. In this study, many animal words are collected for the analysis of the similarities and the differences between the cultural connotations carried by animal words in Chinese and English, find out the causes of differences, and then discuss some methods and techniques for translating these animal words