Abstract

Animal words have more functions than just symbols of animals. When we learn English we have encountered a lot of idioms with animal words. According to Mr. Liao Guangrong’s statistical analysis, there are a total of 258 animal words with associative meaning in English. In addition to their literal meaning, all of them have associative meanings. And those associative meanings are the difficult part of English learning. In order to understand and appropriately use animal words, English learners have to learn more knowledge about English culture, history, and custom. In this article we would compare the associative meanings of English and Chinese animal words to clearly realize the associative meanings of English animal words. We could recognize which part of them deserves more attention. Then in order to understand those associative meaning, we would discuss the sources of those animal words’ associative meanings. Only we know the reason of it could we really understand and appropriately use it.

Key words:   animal words   associative meaning   culture

动物词汇除了作为动物名称外还有更多的功能。学习英语时，我们会遇到许多含有动物词汇的习语。根据廖光荣先生的统计分析，英语中一共有258个文化动物词汇。他们除了具有字面的意思之外，还都具有联想意义。这些联想意义也正是英语学习过程中比较难掌握的部分。为了更好地理解和使用动物词汇，英语学习者需要了解更多的西方文化、历史和风俗知识。在本文中，我们将通过比较英汉动物词汇的联想意义来帮助我们更好地认识英语动物词汇的联想意义。我们可以认识到什么地方需要我们投入更多的精力。然后，为了帮助我们理解动物词汇的联想意义，我们将对联想意义进行溯源。只有我们明白为什么动物词汇会具有这样的联想意义之后，我们才能更好地理解和运用它。

关键词  动物词汇    联想意义   文化

Introduction

In the long history of human beings, animals have been closely linked with human survival and development. In the primitive society, the primitive captured animals for food. Later people made certain animals as tools of farming. Even in some race, certain animal has been treated as a totem that people worship. At present, many people thought that animals are great friends. Animals have been playing an important role in human life. With long-term domestication, use and observation with animals, people created the rich vocabulary and vivid parable. Many animals vocabularies, apart as animal names literally, still have many other interesting connotations, thus making the language more colorful, more expressive.