Abstract:

Translation is an essential part of international communication. Cultural differences bring great difficulties to translation. Animals are closely related to human life and gradually, people are inclined to endow animals with certain qualities or characteristics. Due to different ways of thinking, cultural backgrounds and life styles of Chinese and English people, expressions involving animals in Chinese and in English are also given different cultural connotations. This paper discusses translation theories in translating words and phrases related to animals and what we should pay attention to. It also analyzes cultural connotations in the expressions involving animals in English and Chinese and comparatively classifies them into four main categories: cultural overlap, cultural conflict, cultural displacement and cultural vacancy. And on this basis, it discusses four main strategies we can use when translating words and phrases related to animals. They are literal translation, free translation, borrowing translation and explanatory translation.

Keywords: translation strategies; cultural connotations; borrowing translation; explanatory translation

摘要：

翻译是国际交流中必不可少的环节，而文化差异给翻译带来了巨大的困难。动物与人类生活息息相关，渐渐的人们倾向于将一些特定的品质特征与动物相联系起来。由于英汉民族思维方式、文化背景和生活方式的不同，动物在英汉语中也被赋予了不同的文化内涵。本文讨论了在翻译与动物有关的词语时要参考的翻译理论及注意事项。比较分析了英汉语中动物表达的文化内涵，并将它分为四个种类：文化重合，文化冲突，文化位移和文化空缺。在此基础上讨论了四种翻译动物词语时的翻译策略：直译，意译，借译和释译。

关键词：翻译策略；文化内涵；借译；释译

1 Introduction
As Sapir mentions, language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols. With the rapid development of society, economy and culture, international communication becomes more and more frequent and language is the most important part in international communication.
Language is not only the carrier of its culture but also a part of culture. It is known to all that language always reflects culture which covers politics, economy, history, custom, religion and so on. Different languages may have much in common, but there are also many differences in different cultures. The differences make it difficult for the understanding of people from different countries, and also bring some problems in international communication and translation. Kramsch describes the relationship between language and culture as: “Language expresses cultural reality. Language embodies cultural reality. Language symbolizes cultural reality. ”