Abstract:

Animals are one of the most intimate creatures and the most similar lives with human beings. Animals are friends of human beings, and they play important roles in the development and progress of human society. Vocabulary is used to convey information, so it is with the animals. There are a lot of animal words in our daily life and literary works. However, because of the different geographies, different religions and different histories, the connotations of animal words in one language do not necessarily coincide with those in another. We should consider the differences and similarities of the cultural connotations carried by animal words when translating animal words because of these discrepancies. Only in this way, can we translate correctly the real meanings of the original, and promote the cross-cultural exchanges between the two countries.

Key words: animal words; cultural connotation; factors; translation strategies

摘要：

动物是人类最亲密的物种之一,是在自然属性方面与人类最为接近的生命体。他们作为人类的朋友，在人类历史和文化发展过程中扮演了重要的角色。词汇的基本功能在于承载信息；动物词汇亦如此。动物词汇大量地出现在人们的日常口语以及文学作品中。然而由于不同的地域性、不同的宗教信仰、以及不同的历史等方面，动物词汇的内涵意义会因语言的不同而不同。正是因为这些差异的存在，在翻译时，我们应该充分考虑动物词汇的文化内涵的差异，只有这样，我们才能正确的表达原文的真正内含，促进其跨文化的交流。

关键词：动物词汇；文化内涵；影响因素；翻译方法

Introduction
    Around us are birds in the sky, beasts on the ground and fishes in the water. In the long history, human beings have been keeping a close relationship with animals, which have much effect on the language and make the language colorful and semantically vivid. Along with the development and progress of human society, some animals are a kind of important food to people; some are tamed to become domestic animals serving people; some are becoming people’s pet animals; and some support the inspirations for some inventions of science and technology. So animals become part of our lives gradually. And animal words are becoming one of the basic vocabularies.What are the animal words? According to Guo Zhuzhang，animal words are the words of names of animals and phrases or idioms involving animal names( Guo Zhuzhang, 2003: 15). So as two of the most widely used languages, both Chinese and English are also full of animal words. Some animal words in Chinese and English are the same or similar in cultural connotations, because the Chinese and the English people have the same thoughts and cognition in a degree, or the animals have the same important roles in their lives. But some animal words have the different cultural connotations, some even have the quite opposite connotations. And it may be because of the different geographies, different religions, different histories and so on between the two countries.