Abstract:Almost every language in the world has a great amount of idioms. As two most widely used languages in the world, English and Chinese have a lot of idioms. The English and Chinese idioms reflect two different cultures and customs. How to understand and translate them is concerned by many people. In a broad sense, idioms are made up of the set colloquialisms, proverbs, slangs and set phrases. In a narrow sense, idioms only refer to the set phrases. The idioms in this thesis are all indicating the broad sense. This thesis tries to focus on the Chinese and English definitions and cultural differences, the translation criteria and methods of idioms.
Key words: idiom translation; cultural differences; translation criteria; translation methods
摘要:世界上凡是历史比较有成就的语言都包含有大量的习语。作为历史比较悠久的语言，英语和汉语都拥有大量的习语。由于英汉两种语言的习语反映了两种不同的文化习俗，如何更好地理解及翻译英汉习语，一直为人们所关注。习语有广义和狭义之分，狭义的习语指成语，而广义的习语包括成语、俗语、谚语、歇后语和粗俗语等。本文所指的习语是狭义上的，即指的是成语。本文主要通过对英汉成语的定义、文化差异、翻译标准及翻译方法等方面来研究英汉成语的翻译。
关键词：成语翻译；文化差异；翻译标准；翻译方法
The idiom is a fixed language form because of the customary use, and it is concluded by people from the social phenomena and experience. And the idioms usually are fixed phrases or short sentences. They are the core and the most important part of one nation’s language.
Most of the idioms are vivid language forms. They can make the languages more beautiful and lively. Almost every highly developed language has a great number of idioms. Both English and Chinese are highly developed languages. Thus they have a lot of idioms. Many Chinese idioms are four-character phrases. However, the amount of words in English set phrases is quite different from Chinese idioms. But they have some similar basic characteristics. Both English and Chinese idioms cover rich culture information, and most of them reflect a nation’s characteristics and the geographical features.
When we translate the idioms, we must make sure that our translation can convey the information of the source language effectively. This is the key point of our translation. The English and Chinese idioms have many differences. If we want to translate them accurately, we must learn about their differences. And their differences can be concluded in the following aspects: the geographical environment, the historical background, the religious beliefs and the customary background. When we translate the idioms we must take these differences into consideration and we must choose the proper translation methods according to these differences.
