英语论文网

aphic condition of Chongqing in China, “棒棒军” exists as something distinctive in the city. It is translated in some foreign journals as "porters". On China Daily, the translation is" shoulder-pole corps” The former didn't express the regional characteristics of the word. It is in lack of humor and vividness that are found in the translation on China Daily. " shoulder-pole " catches the exact image of 棒棒军, and "corps" reflects the bold and uninhibited character of people in the mountain city.
  So, different living surroundings may generate different idioms and different culture. Geographic characteristics not only influence the material life of a country, they also influence the language and the culture. It is easy to see geographic characteristics have a influence on language. It reflects on the pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and so on. It play great role when we want to translate the sense of reality in these geographic characteristics.
  Also, animals represent different meanings in different culture. Take “dog” as for example, the word “dog” is not a culturally – loaded word when refers to dogs, a kind of animal. But when using it to describe situation or someone’s personality, it is a culturally – loaded word. And in different cultural background, it has different meanings. In the western civilization, dogs are the good friends of people or they even can be considered a family member. There are many idioms concerning dog in English, most of which have a commendatory sense, for example, “clever dog” refers to clever boy or clever guy; “to help a lame dog over a stile” means “to help a person in trouble”; "Love me, love my dog" represents “accept my friends as yours”. So when someone is lucky, they will say to him: “You are the lucky dog”. And when someone is tired, he will say “I’m dog- tired". However, dog is very pejorative in Chinese, we can see this from the Chinese words and idiomatic expression as follows: “狗眼看人低” refer to “be damned snobbish”; “狼心狗肺”implies rapacious as a wolf and savage as a cur); “狗嘴里吐不出象牙”means “a filthy mouth can't utter decent language”; “癞皮狗”refer to loathsome creature, and so on. When one notices the difference, it would be easy for him to understand why the Chinese would at first feel insulted for being called "a lucky dog", while the English might be greatly puzzled by the utterance "We can't go out for there is a dog outside", because here the “dog” is used metaphorically to refer to spies or servile followers.
The English word ‘dragon’ and the Chinese “龙” also have different associations.
In China, the “dragon” is a legendary creature, typically depicted as a large and powerful serpent. Its western representations have wings, but Chinese ones do not. The Chinese “龙”( “long” https://www.51lunwen.org/languagethesis/ in Chinese Pinyin) is regarded as dignity and is always compared to the symbol of the emperors in ancient China. However, the English ‘dragon’ is seen as an evil monster in Greek myth.
  Chinese people admire and worship this imagined animal. It is the symbol of the Chinese nation; and it is the symbol of authority, strength and good fortune. In English, although dragon can bring the association of “strength” and “power”, it gives negative connotation. When seeing this word in English,