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Animal Metaphors In Chinese Culture

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1.Introduction
Animals play a vital role in the life of human beings．Human beings and animals have a lot in common on the basis of gene，physical features，behaviors and so on. Through long-term social production and careful observation of all sorts of animals, people have collected an overall understanding and a profound knowledge of their habits and characteristics and temperaments etc，which would be embodied in human language without doubt. Owing to frequent contact with animals，human beings create many animal words in their languages, which are reflected what Robert A. Palmatier (1995) describes in Speaking of Animals(A Dictionary of animal metaphors)："No other nonhuman source has served as the basis for more metaphors than animals”.
As Hawkes wrote in 1980:"The word ‘metaphor’ comes from the …show more content…

Animal metaphors formed on the basis of cultural backgrounds．When animal metaphors in two languages formed on the shared cultural backgrounds, it is very easy for the people in different cultures to understand；when animal metaphors in two languages formed on the different cultural backgrounds，it is very difficult for the people in different cultures to understand．In this paper, the author compares the animal metaphors in Chinese and English two languages from cultural perspective. Through detailed comparison, cognitive universality and cultural differences of animal metaphors hidden has been excavated.
To a certain degree，there are some limitations in this analysis of animal metaphors，but the study from a cultural aspect still has its theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, it provides abundant evidences for the study of the Comparison of Animal Metaphors in English and Chinese．Practically, on the one hand，it helps English learners deepen the knowledge of the mechanism of animal metaphor. on the other hand，it enhances leamers’ awareness of cross cultural

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