【正文】 ver man.“Turkey” has plentiful connotations in English too. For example, “talk turkey” means “to be honestly”。 “cold turkey” means “stop suddenly” or “get rid of something pletely”. The expression “have a turkey on his back” does not mean that one is carrying a turkey. In fact, it means “he is drunken or he takes drugs”. In China, “turkey” is only a bird that can be made as a dish. “Oyster” earns its special meaning by its natural character. In English, the best oyster is always close tightly. So people in English use “oyster” to describe someone who is taciturn. A goat in English refers to a person who always does sexual harassment towards women. “White elephant” refers to an image of ordinary elephant in Chinese. However, in English it refers to huge but clumsy and useless things. Besides, there are many other animals like “nightingale”, “chicken” and “eel”, which Chinese people just consider as mon animals. “Nightingale” has a meaning of “informer” (Liao Guangrong, 2000). “Chicken” means “coward”. And “eel” means “a sly person”, so we can find the phrase “as slippery as an eel” in English. 4. The cultural connotations of different animal words for the same meaning in English and ChineseIn English and Chinese, different animal words have the same or similar connotations. That means people from two cultures respectively use different animal words to express the same meanings. These words show that people in different cultures understand objects by the same means and the phenomenon is related to history and aesthetic appreciations to some extent. There are hundreds of examples. In Chinese, we usually use the phrase “他壯得跟頭牛似的” to describe a strong man. That’s because “bull” or “ox” stands for strength, robustness and sturdiness. But in most western countries, “horse” takes the most important role in their farming. So English speakers prefer to use “horse” instead of “bull” to express the same meaning. “壯得跟頭牛似的” in English is “as strong as a horse”(Wang Sheng, 2006). When English people describe someone who brags, they use the phrase “talk horse”, while in Chinese, we say “吹?！? English people usually use “I am so hungry to eat a horse” to express the meaning “我餓得可以吃下一頭牛” (Weng Sheng, 2006). The saying in English “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” is similar to “老牛不喝水,不能強(qiáng)壓頭” in Chinese.Chinese people usually use “mouse” to describe a person who is timid. It is different from English countries. In English, they describe a timid person as “chicken”, “rabbit”, and “pigeon” such as “as timid as a rabbit”, “don’t be scared, chicken”, “he took the plunge when others chickened out” and “he is pigeonlivered”. In English, they may use the idiom “l(fā)ike a cat on hot bricks” when they want to describe a vexatious person. In Chinese, we will use another animal word “螞蟻”, such as “熱鍋上的螞蟻”.In China, people consider that “tiger” is the king of animals. And “tiger” is used to describe the intrepid and martial man. We have many words about “tiger” such as “龍騰虎躍”, “虎踞龍?bào)础?and “九牛二虎之力”. But in English, “l(fā)ion” stands for being brave and ficerce, for example, “bold as a lion”(如獅子般勇猛), “majestic as a lion”(如獅子般威風(fēng)凜凜). There is an old saying in Chinese “老虎屁股摸不得”, while in English, people use “don’t beard the lion” or “one should not twist the lion’s tail” to express the same idea. “A lion in the way” has the same meaning as “攔路虎” in Chinese. Furthermore, Chinese people use “狐假虎威” to describe someone who browbeats others by virtue of one’s powerful connections. In English, people use “an ass in the lion’s skin” to show the same meaning. “A drowned cat” in English has a similar meaning to the expression “落湯雞” in Chinese. We use the image of “pig” to describe stupidity in Chinese, but in English, they say “as stupid as a goose” or “make an ass of oneself”. In Chinese, we have a saying “噤若寒蟬” which appear in English as “as mute as fish”. There are a great many examples of this kind, such as:Like a duck to water (如魚得水)A rat in a hole (甕中之鱉)Lock the stable door after the horse is stolen (亡羊補(bǔ)牢)Kill the goose that lays golden eggs (殺雞取卵)Set the cat among the pigeon (引狼入室)Slippery as an eel (滑得像泥鰍)(. Wood, 1989: 3044)According to all the examples above, some animals represent the same or similar images and have similar connotations. Different cultural connotations result in different expressions.5. ConclusionLanguage is the carrier and the major expression form of culture(Dai Shuijiao，2001). Language develops along with the development of nations, and it is the embodiment of integrity of social national culture. Each nation has its own culture, history and local customs, which are mirrored in its language (Yao Dawei, 2006). Different social backgrounds result in different modes of thinking, cultural connotations and values. The animal words in human languages bare the deep socialcultural imprints in the course of being used long by human beings. English teaching is both language teaching and culture teaching. Through the study of animal words between English and Chinese, we can find that any animal word in different languages is not only a kind of the sign of animal and different cultures result in different cultural connotations of animal words. Therefore, cultural discrepancy and the coincidence phenomena of Chinese culture and western culture should be emphasized as cultural knowledge in language teaching. It is also necessary to enrich our knowledge of different cultures as much as possible and makeclear the differences of cultures between English and Chinese in order to understand correctly cultural connotations of words.ReferencesA S Hornby. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. F. T. Wood. English Verbal Idioms. Tianjin: Yu Hang Press, 1989.戴水姣. 英漢動物類詞語的文化內(nèi)涵淺析. 教學(xué)與管理, 2001 第2期: 3336.廖光榮. 英漢文化動物詞對比. 外國語, 2000 第5期: 1726.湯月華. 從文化角度談英語動物詞匯的