【正文】 anings. Any language which has a long history is abundant in idioms. As a special kind of language material, idioms enjoy great popularity among people because of their conciseness, vividness, distinctiveness and prehensiveness (Bao 2021:148). Idioms possess such a vigorous life that they have held their place throughout centuries. Reflected from idioms are the environment, life, history and culture of native speakers as well as their innermost spirit and feeling. Therefore, idioms are regarded as the core and essence of language and culture. Thus, probing the sources of idioms and studying the relations between idioms and important cultural aspects such as historical backgrounds, geographical conditions, social customs, religious beliefs and cultural heritages, etc. will help us to prehend the cultural elements in idioms. So far many linguists have been carrying out researches for the purpose of more fully understanding idioms. It is interesting and inspiring to notice that recent idiom researchers have conducted researches not only in the linguistic area, but also in other fields. Some study their semantic and syntactic features and others, like Fernando(2021), elaborate on the functions of idioms in texts and discourses. Those who study the formal and semantic features carry out their researches from the pure linguistic perspective, while those who propose the different processing models of idioms are more psychologyoriented. Since 1990s, scholars have paid more attention to the cultural elements in English and Chinese idioms. Culture studies on idioms have aroused interests of many scholars, such as Ping Hong and Zhang Guoyang (2021), Jiang Lei (2021), etc., who have made great contributions to culture studies on idioms. It is widely recognized that language and culture are interactive and cannot be separated. Idiom, as the essence of language, inevitably interacts with national culture. However, divergences which exist between different languages and cultures often result in obstacles in mutual understanding between participants who belong to different cultures. In other words, with the awareness of cultural differences between English and Chinese idioms, people may 湖南涉外經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)院本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)） 2 avoid much misunderstanding in crosscultural munication by trying to realize the real intention of other participants. Therefore, this thesis intends to make a contrastive study on cultural aspects of English and Chinese idioms. This tentative research is a practical study based on the established theories. It consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 presents a general survey of language, culture and idioms. Chapter 2 offers definitions of English and Chinese idioms. Chapter 3 discusses the characteristics of English and Chinese idioms. Chapter 4 deals with cultural differences between English and Chinese idioms. Finally, the author draws a conclusion from the study, pointing out the limitations of the research and offering a few suggestions for future study. 湖南涉外經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)院本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)） 3 Chapter 1 A Brief Introduction to Language, Culture and Idiom English and Chinese are abundant in idioms, which are peculiar to the languages in question and loaded with the native cultures and ideas. They have been described as a crystallization of human wit and wisdom and gems of language. Therefore, idioms are colorful, forcible and thoughtprovoking. However, divergences of language and culture exist between English and Chinese idioms, which often result in obstacles in mutual understanding between English and Chinese people. So it is necessary to make a contrastive study between idioms in the two languages and cultures, for it can help us to find their similarities and differences which may shed light on the appropriate strategies to be employed in their understanding. This chapter briefly introduces language, culture and idiom, and their relationship between each other. Definition of Language What is language? Many linguists have been trying for centuries to define the term. But so far no pletely satisfactory definition seems to have been given. Some often quoted definitions are as follows. According to Sapir (2021:7), Language is a purely human and noninstinctive method of municating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced arbitrary, vocal symbols which permit all people in a given culture or other people who have learned the system of that culture, to municate or to interact. Wardhaugh (1977:3) thinks that the monly accepted definition of language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human munication. Based on the above definitions, we can see two points. Firstly, language is a system of symbols (signs). And at the same time, language is not an isolated phenomenon but a social activity closely related to social culture and the existence of language is mainly for the purpose of human munication. As a whole, language is a system of conventional spoken or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture ,湖南涉外經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)院本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)） 4 municate. It is often cultureloaded and acts as a transmitter of history and culture. It grows and develops with the growth and development of society. Definition of Culture Culture is a large and extremely plex concept. Although hundreds of definitions have been suggested for culture and definitions of culture range from its broad sense to its narrow sense, it is virtually difficult to define the very term since there is really very little agreement on what people mean by the idea of culture in the first place. Some scholars abroad estimate that no less than 200 definitions for culture have already been cited in the academic field, some of which are concerned with the material products of the people,