摘　要

在人类历史发展的长河中，动物都扮演着非常重要的角色，与人类紧密联系。动物不仅出现在人们的日常生活中，它们也在各种语言中出现，形成各国独特的动物文化。动物词汇在汉英两种语言中被频繁使用。不同的动物有不同的寓意，也承载着丰富的文化内涵。英汉动物词汇的文化内涵充分体现了英汉两个民族不同的文化心理、价值取向与社会风格，折射出两个民族各自绚丽多姿的文化。汉英两个名族由于历史发展，文化背景，宗教信仰等因素的不同对同一动物词产生不同的理解。作者通过对汉英动物词汇的文化象征意义的比较，探析它们的相同与不同之处。本文从三个方面来理解动物在汉英两种语言中的表现形式，并分析了造成这些异同的原因。通过比较和举例，作者希望可以帮助人们可以更充分地体会到汉英文化在动物词汇上的文化差异，也希望为更好的沟通交流打下基础。

关键词：动物寓意；异同；影响因素

Abstract

Language and culture are closely related to each other. Language is a part of culture as well as a mirror of it. As the basic element of language, word is the backbone of the whole language system. It certainly reflects the differences of culture most obviously and extensively. Animals are playing an important role in the long history of human being and always related closely with them. Animal words not only appear in people’s daily life, but also show up in different languages，so many countries form their unique animal culture. Animal words are frequently used in Chinese and English. Different animals have different meanings and also bear the rich cultural connotation. The connotation fully embodies the two different national cultural psychology, value orientation and social style, and reflects the colorful culture of the two nations. Because of the differences in historical development, cultural background, religious belief and other elements, Chinese and English nationalities have different understandings of animal words. The author can find the similarities and differences through making comparisons of the cultural symbolic significance in Chinese and English animal words. In this paper, the author shows the different expressions in Chinese and English through these three aspects in order to help people understand the meanings of animals in Chinese and English. With comparisons and examples in this paper, author hopes people can understand the cultural differences about animal words better and this paper can lay a better foundation for further communication.  

Key words: animals’ meanings; similarities and differences; influence

1 Introduction
Language is the social phenomenon, is the carrier of culture. Any kind of language in the world is rooted in a specific cultural background and reflects specific cultural contents. People live in different ecological and natural environment form different languages, knowledge, belief, thinking, customs and habits, which caused cultural differences. Cultural differences lead to the different cultural connotation of words and reflect the different national social system, religious belief, custom and the identical understanding of the objective world. And the different associations are often caused by different culture.