Metaphor is not only a form of language, but also a carrier of thought and culture. Due to the influence of different history, traditions, customs, thinking modes and other factors, animal words have different connotations in Chinese and Western cultures. The purpose of this article is to understand the metaphorical mapping and translation of animal cultural connotations from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, and to discover a mapping mechanism that highlights the flexibility of language through metaphors. Based on Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor theory, this paper explores the metaphor mapping of different cultural connotations in Chinese and English animal idioms through some representative examples. Based on four types of animals, 318 examples of animal metaphors in Chinese and English, analyze the data according to the principle of metaphoric highlighting, and try to compare the cultural connotation of animal words from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, and point out the translation methods of animal words. The results show that the mapping mechanisms of different languages are the same and different. The relatively abstract concept is more prominent in the target domain, and the relatively specific concept in the original source domain is highlighted as an abstract concept in the target domain through the role of the mapping mechanism; the difference is that the mapping mechanism is different due to different cultural and social factors.

Heng Zhang. Metaphorical Mapping and Translation of Animal Cultural Connotations in Chinese and English in Intercultural Communication. Zoology and Animal Physiology (2021), Vol. 2, Issue 4: 50-60. https://doi.org/10.38007/ZAP.2021.020405.

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