Abstract:

Metaphor, a sort of figure of speech as well as a way of thinking, is widely studied by linguists at home and abroad. The comparative study of metaphor has always been a popular issue in the field of contrastive study. Nowadays with the development of cognitive linguistics, metaphor has been used as a way of understanding human cognition. This paper attempts at comparing the metaphorical meaning of Chinese and English animal lexicon， that is, similarities, differences and blanks, to find out the discrepancies in thinking ways of these two countries. Cultural factors like region，history and geography that have a great impact on these characteristics are also analyzed to enhance the understanding of different cultures and to promote intercultural communication in different languages.

Key words：animal metaphor；English and Chinese animal lexicon comparison; cultural factors 

摘要：

隐喻作为一种修辞手段和思维方式，在国内外被广泛研究。隐喻的对比研究也是学术界的热点。 如今，随着认知语言学的发展，隐喻更多被看作是理解人类认知的重要方式。本文通过对英汉动物词汇隐喻意义的对比分析，即重合、冲突、空缺来分析英汉语言在认知思维上的差异。文化因素例如宗教、历史和地理等作为影响人们认知方式的重要原因也将被研究。本文旨在通过对这些因素的分析来强化对不同文化的理解以促进不同文化间的交流。

关键词：动物隐喻；英汉对比；文化因素

1. Introduction
Animals, as indispensable members of nature, have been in close contact with people since ancient times. The relationship between them appears to be very fantastic. On the one hand, they share a lot in common in terms of gene, actions, physical features and behavior. On the other hand, biologically speaking, human beings are animals in their essence. Due to multiple cognitive relations between them, animals have been naturally used as metaphorical objects to describe human behaviors. They choose to use animals to examine themselves, using animals to express themselves. This technique of expression can be called animal metaphor.