Comparison between Chinese and English Proverbs.doc

汉英谚语的比较与对照摘要:本文通过对汉英谚语在起源、修辞及内容三方面进行归类、举例和分析,发现汉英谚语在诸多方面存在共同点,而汉英谚语中的共同点均发源于相似的文化背景,从而印证中西方深层次文化在其形成过程中存在着大量的共性,使人们通过谚语对中西方的传统文化有一个全面的印象,有助于树立跨文化交际的思想。关键词:谚语;对照;起源;修辞;语言;文化comparison between chinese and english proverbsabstract:this paper is a descriptive analysis of cultural similarities between chinese and english proverbs. altogether the paper contains three parts. the firstpartprovides a general introduction to the topic and the cultural background of this paper. part two mainly focuses on the similarities between chinese and english proverbs in three aspects. first, a study is made on the origins of chinese and english proverbs. then, rhetorical devices, including figures of speech and emphatic means, are studied. finally, chinese and english proverbs are compared in the respectof content. part three is a general conclusion for this paper.this paper, through analysis, finds that there are some similarities between chinese and english proverbs in origins, rhetorical devices and content. the present study will be helpful to english learning and cross-cultural communication.key w ords:proverbs; similarities; origins; rhetorical devices; languages; culture1introduction francis bacon said,“genius wit and spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs”. proverbs are oldest as well as most valuable language forms that belong to our human beings. various proverbs exist in various nations in various forms. china is an age old country that is rich in cultures and classics.therefore, in chinese, plenty of proverbs are shining like pearls. similarly, english, which also has a long history and now enjoys great popularity in the world, is also proud of its extraordinary and splendid proverbs. as we know, there are great differences between chinese language and english language. therefore, many differences between chinese and english proverbs are inevitable because proverb is certainly a part of language. consequently, this will definitely make some obstacles and difficulties for people from different cultures and of different languages to understand each other. however, nowadays, more andmore commutations across different cultures and languages are greatly needed. therefore,the aim of this paper is to analyze the similarities between chinese and english proverbs. furthermore, the research may not only help people from different cultures to communicate well but may be also helpful to translation between these two languages.1. 1 the definition of proverbs as far as iknow, the word “proverb”has various meanings from difference resources. according to longman dictionary of american english, proverb is“a short well- known saying usually in popular language”, but in oxford advanced learners englishchinese dictionary, the meaning of proverb goes like this“short well-known saying that states a general truth or gives advice”. in addition, as to the sources,“proverbs are mainly from common peoples daily lives”1. so, based on everything mentioned above, above all the definitions i mentioned, the definition of proverbs is mainly based on this one,“proverb is a brie,f vivid, complete and well-accepted sentence which is a summary of experience from common peoples daily lives, and also, proverb has the functions of sharing experience, giving admonitions and teaching posterities”2. although proverbs and idioms have many things in common, they have their own characters. the most important difference is that proverb is a part of idiom. furthermore, proverbs are not only summaries of experience from common peoples daily lives, but also have the functions of sharingexperience, giving admonitions and teaching posterities. however, for idioms, they are neither a whole sentence nor a phase that can give admonitions and teaching posterities, though idioms are also summaries of experience from common peoples daily lives.1. 2 the functions and significance of proverbs proverbs are commonly used in both spoken and written language. and proverbs mainly have three functions as follows. for one thing, proverbs are importantparts ofnational treasures, and they can reflect each nations features aswell as their own characteristics. for another, proverbs are guidance or instructions that come down from our ancestors. w ith proverbs help, we can not only efficiently arrange our life but also get better fruits from ourwork and study. in addition, proverbs are of great rhetorical significance. languages without proverbs maybe are monotone and rough languages. even more, a world without proverbs will definitely be a boring world. so proverbs have the function of making our language more smooth and vivid.1. 3 literature review much research work has been done on the comparison between chinese and english proverbs. and many a linguist does great contribution in this field. wang dechun, professor of shanghai foreign language university, have published a book named chinese-english proverbs and culture, in which his emphasis is on the origins, language features and cultural implications of chinese and english proverbs. professor wang finds that culture has great influence on language, including proverbs. so in his book, professor wang make detailed explanations on the relationship between language and culture, more exactly, between proverb and culture. another professor zeng zili who are the author of英语谚语概说,mainly did research on the english proverbs, including its definition, origin, application and translation. moreover, many dictionaries which mainly deals with english and chinese proverbs are of great collections of proverbs, such as a practical english chinese dictionary of proverb, which is edited by xiao ruibei andoxford concise dictionary of proverbs, which is edited by john simpson, all of these books are much helpful in my writing.1. 4 the present study so, based on the plentiful examples, this paper attempts to decode some similarities from the perspective of the proverbs of the two languages, by analyzing the relations between the linguistic features and some cultural features, in order to make my dear readers get to know some basic ideas of chinese proverbs and english proverbs, and to make commutations between these two kinds of cultures more fluent and efficient.2the sim ilarities between chinese proverbs and english proverbs just like a proverb says,“proverbs contradict each other, that is the wisdom of mankind”. every nation has its own characters, and proverbs that belong to different nations have different features and feelings. take china and britain for example, china ismainly an agricultural country butbritain is a powerful navigational country. therefore, many a chinese proverb is concerned with agriculture while a number of english proverbs are related to sailing. for instance, in china, theres a proverb goes like this,“as you sow you shallmow”(种瓜得瓜,种豆得豆), and it undoubtedly comes from farmersdaily lives. on the contrary,“the good seaman is known in badweather”, which is an english proverb, is just a reflection of english sailorsexperience on the sea. whats more, there are also different attitudes toward dogs between chinese and americans. although both chinese and americans have the habit of raising dogs, chinese considerdogs as bad and unlucky things while americans think dogs as our friends. in china, such proverb like“its useless to keep dogs away from shit”is a kind of prejudice to dogs. however, in america, the proverbs“every dog has its day”and“every dog is valiant at his own door”are of greatpraise for dogs. despite of all the differences between chinese proverbs and english proverbs, there are also many similarities between them. first of al,l as we mentioned before, the functions of both chinese proverbs and english proverbs are same, that they are not only instructions but also guidance for later generations. secondly, it is neither linguists nor great leader but common people and laborers who are creators of all of proverbs. so, proverbs, no matter belong to what language or culture, have the same creator, laboring people all over the world. finally, both chinese proverbs and english proverbs are from peoples experience of lives and productions, so they have same origins. in chinese, there is a proverb“a timely snow promises a good harvest”(瑞雪兆丰年), and in english, the proverb“a snow year, a rich”just have the same meaning as the chinese proverb. so the same experience of farming originated these two proverbs. in this paper, through comparison, im going to analyze the similarities between chinese proverbs and english proverbs in details inmainly four aspects.2. 1 chinese and english proverbs and their origins2. 1. 1 proverbs and literal works before written words appeared, a great number of folk proverbs, which carried much experience ofevery aspectofdaily life, spread widely among the people. and after characters and words appeared, proverbs were immediately recorded in classics and literal works. proverbs of different languages and cultures were taken down in different classics and works. in chinese ancient books and records, proverbs mainly appear in poems, commentaries and the analects of confucius. similarly, english proverbs are also recorded in story books as well as shakespeares works. these classics, which contain many both chinese and english useful proverbs, are considered to be mottos and maxims by people all over the world. china is a country with 5000-year civilization and plenty of literal works and classics. although han civilization got in touchwith or even been invaded by other different civilizations, it still kept to be the mainstream of chinese civilization. so, besides han civilization, other civilization and cultures such as mongolians or the manchus also have some influence on chinese proverbs. in other words, han civilization turned to be more rich and varied because it has absorbed much nutrition from other civilizations. the analects of confusion, written by confucius, is a symbol of chinese classics and literature which is full of chinese ancientproverbs. all of the dialogues and behaviors of confucius and his students are recorded in the analects of confusion. moreover,“the analects of confusion also took down some popular proverbs at that time, thats why we can still use ancient proverbs now.”3so, these proverbs of the book are mainly concerned with study and career. just as“三人行,必有我师焉”,“学而时习之,不亦说乎”,“欲速则不达”and “有朋自远方来,不亦乐乎”. these proverbs, have been the precious treasures of chinese language. other chinese classics deals with proverbs are zuo zhuan (左传), which is written by zuo qiuming,book of songs (诗经) and the mencius and so on. similar with the chinese history, english speaking countries are also invaded by other countries with different languages and cultures. in europe, the mainstream of cultures or civilizations is also often changeable. before romans invasion, every nation had their own civilization, they use their own languages and have their own ways of living. however, everything in europe changed because of the romans domination. roman dominators ordered every european to speak only latin, so this kind of cultural invasion had great influences on the european cultural development. from all i mentioned above we can see that chinese proverbs and english proverbs have so many cultural similarities. that is both chinese culture and english culture were invaded and absorbed other kinds of cultures in their invasion. shakespeare, who created and used in his works as many proverbs as confucius in his the analects of confusion, is the greatest english proverb creator and user in history, just as wilson said,“no writer is richer in proverbs than shakespeare”. like confucius, shakespeare used lots of vivid words and many rhetorical devices in his work or even in the proverbs he created. the typical example is the proverb“lend your money and lose your friend”, this proverb not only contains rhetorical devices but is also meaningful. for instance, shakespeare used parallelism and repetition to strength the word“lend”,“lose”and“your”so that readers can easily catch the central idea of the proverb. thats what shakespeare mean.still, some of shakespeares proverbs have many similarities with our chinese proverbs. for example, a chinese proverb“对事不对人”, expresses the meaning that we should limit our blame on what others have done, but not others own characters or qualities.2. 1. 2 proverbs and daily life people of all nations accumulated much experience from lives and works, and these experiences are also reflected in each nations proverbs. according to their different effects, these proverbs can be divided into two groups. proverbs belong to the first group have direct instructions on work and labor, such as farming, fishing and so on, while proverbs belong to the second group are called truths or principles which are distillations of direct experiences from life and work. therefore, truths and principles have much more usages in much wider areas. it is well- known that we human beings live on rice,wheat, vegetables and meat. all of them are definitely from our farmland, so proverbs of farming are the most important and most practical proverbs. generally speaking, farmers have the biggest amount of proverbs no matter in what kind of culture. especially in china, farming is considered as our lives because of chinas big population. such proverbs are“选好一粒种,增产千粒粮”,“春分有雨家家忙”, and“芝麻是个怪,又怕雨来又怕晒”. english also has many proverbs of farming, as“april rain for corn, may, for grass”and“an old ox makes a straight furrow”. im surprised to find out a pair of chinese farming proverb and english proverb matches so well, in chinese, its“吃了端午粽,才把棉衣送”, and in english, its“cast not a clout till may be out”. so, both of these two proverbs tell people not to take off the clout until may is finished. however, because of the differences in weather conditions, chinese farming proverbs are not all the same as english farming proverbs on the time and seasons. for example, proverbs about rains are different from chinese farming proverbs and english farming proverbs. besides, both chinese and english people believe that intelligence is not innate but from daily accumulations of practicing and experiencing. so, as to this point, chinese proverbs and english proverbs have everything in common. the chinese proverb goes like“实践是一切智慧的源泉”, and the english proverb is“experience is the mother of wisdom”. the english proverb goes like“no man is born wise or learned”, so the chinese proverb is“天才出于勤奋,知识来自实践”.moreover, we chinese always say“一熟三分巧”, which in english proverbs is“practice makes perfect”.2. 2 chinese and english proverbs and rhetorical devices2. 2. 1 proverbs and figures of speech “a simile, then, is a figures of speech which makes a comparison between two unlike elements having at least one quality or characteristic in common.”4while“a metaphor, like a simile, also makes a comparison between two unlike elements, butunlike a simile, this comparison is implied rather than stated”5. these two kinds of rhetorical devices can not only make languages including proverbs vivid but also easy to be understood. although there are maybe some differences between chinese proverbs and english proverbs in pattern and specific words, the meaning expressed by chinese and english proverbs are quite similar. for example, both chinese and english proverbs use animals to describe the strength, though sometimes they use different kinds of animals. first, in chinese culture, cattle or ox are considered to be the important animal for farming, while in england, horse is the best choice for farming. however, both cattle and horse are animals, which stand for honesty strength and power.“杀鸡焉用牛刀”is a standard chinese proverb which emphasize a cows strength and power, and in english there also have a proverb“strong as a horse”to express the same meaning. whats more, in chinese,“老黄牛”is to describe honesty and obedience, just like the english proverb“work like a horse, a willing horse”. second, as far as our chinese are concerned, tiger is a kind of extremely brutal animal in forest, so“不入虎穴焉得虎子”is used to describe tigers cruel and ferocity, but english people will certainly say that lion is the king among all kinds of animals, so“brave like a lion, fight like a lion”hasthe same meaning as the chinese proverb. third, in china, there is a folk fable called“mr. dong guo and a wolf”, which narrates story that a man called mr. dong guo saved a wolf, but finally, he was eaten by the wolf he saved. for this fable, wolf become the synonym of the chinese proverb“恩将仇报”. in the bible, the story of the snake named satin is the same like the chinese fable“mr. dong guo and a wolf”. however, in the bibles story, it is not a wolf but a snake that betrayed. so in english, the proverbs“a snake in the grass”and“requite kindness with enmity”just have it implied meanings like the former chinese proverb.2. 2. 2 proverbs and emphatic means “parallelism, which is necessary to balanceword forword, phrase with phrase, clause with clause, sentence with sentence, is regularly employed in the listing of facts, ideas, events etc.,and the parallel elements may range from a minimum of two to any number required.”parallelism is commonly used in both chinese proverbs and english proverbs. for instance, in chinese great master piece liji(礼记) there is a proverb“民之所欲,天必从之”, while the english proverb“the voice of the people is the voice of god”justexpress the samemeaning as the chinese proverb. these two proverbs have the same meaning that common people are the most important treasure for dominators, and the demands of common people are just what dominators should give. for another, a engli