English Proverbs

A Research on the Translation of English Proverbs

A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts

Chen Donglin

Under the Supervision of
Wang Li

Department of Foreign Languages, Jingu College,
Tianjin Normal University
May 2010
Contents

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………...............i
Abstract (English)…………………………………………………………………….ii
Abstract (Chinese)……………………………………………………………………iii
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………….1
Chapter 1 Cultural factors in English proverbs translation
.…………………………….………………………………………………………....2
1.1 The origin influences….…………………………………………...............2 1.2 Geographical influences…………………………….…………………......3 1.3 Customary influences…………………………………………………........3 1.4 Religious influences……………………………………………………......4 1.5 Historical allusions…………………………………………........................5
Chapter 2 The specific translation priciples of English proverbs…...........................6 2.1 Lliteral translation……………………………………….……..................7 2.2 Influence of French………………………………………………………...7 2.3 Combination of literal translation and free translation …….……. ....…......8 2.4 The other translation………….………….………….…………….………..8
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………....…10
Works Cited.....…………………………………………………………………….…11

Abstract

The proverb comes from life, which is a national language and culture of highly enriched and concentrated expression. It can reflect a country 's geography, history, religion and cultural background. So culture is a key to study a nation’s prverb . Proverbs treasure as two different languages, because of their unique culture showed a significant difference. Therefore, how to faithfully translate proverbs from a culture into another culture, became an unavoidable problem for each translator. With the help of some typical examples, we can see that English prverbs involve the origin,

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