【正文】 .......................... iii Table of Contents ..........................................................................................................iv Introduction .................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter One Proverbs Containing Dogs and Previous Studies on It ............................. 3 The Roles of Dog and Proverbs Containing Dogs ........................................... 3 Previous Studies on Proverbs Containing Dogs .............................................. 3 Chapter Two Methods and Materials ............................................................................. 5 Methods............................................................................................................ 5 Materials........................................................................................................... 5 Chinese Proverbs containing Dogs ....................................................... 5 English Proverbs containing Dogs ........................................................ 7 Chapter Three Major Findings ..................................................................................... 11 Data Analysis ................................................................................................. 11 Factors Affecting Cultural Connotation of Animal Words in English and Chinese Proverbs.................................................................................................. 12 Chapter Four Conclusion ............................................................................................. 14 References .................................................................................................................... 15 臨沂大學(xué)外國(guó)語(yǔ)學(xué)院本科畢業(yè)論文 Introduction Proverb is a culturally significant pithy saying with a moral or practical message. Simple and brief proverbs can achieve profound insignificance and produce humorous wit. In various cultures, most proverbs are connected to animals. And we can find the different attitudes toward animals from the proverbs of their culture. Among all the animals, dogs apparently play an important role in our daily life since ancient time. Therefore, during the development of culture a great many proverbs containing dogs are produced. In mon views, dogs are treated as the symbol of loyalty, inferiority and snobbery, which in fact are related to dogs’ character. And in most cases, people tend to criticize people by the description of dogs. It is seemingly to talk about dogs, but the real purpose is to express human principles with the aids of rhetoric devices like metaphor, irony or euphemism. I am interested in the proverbs containing dogs and I want to use this aspect as an entry point to understand the similarities and differences between American and Chinese culture better. More importantly, through the parative study on these proverbs, we can observe various social phenomena. However, proverbs from different countries usually convey special and different messages and connotation. For example, in Chinese, the proverbs about dog mostly express derogatory sense while in English, the proverbs show mendatory sense, which is resulted from different culture about dogs and the attitude towards dogs. In China, dogs are considered to be the watchdogs, which evidently will decide the tragic fate and image of dogs in our minds. On the contrary, in the western countries, dogs are always regarded as lovely and intimate pet or panion especially for the elders. Sometimes, dogs can even be treated as the family members, which undoubtedly make the western dogs own a totally different life and status. By focusing on culturally loaded aspects of the words or phrases which people from another country use require our special attention, which would help us do smoothly and properly in intercultural munication. The article will discuss the proverbs about dogs mainly from four aspects. Chapter one is to give a brief introduction to the roles of dog and the various proverbs containing dogs and previous studies on proverbs containing dogs. Chapter two is to show the methods and materials of parative study of English and Chinese臨沂大學(xué)外國(guó)語(yǔ)學(xué)院本科畢業(yè)論文 2 proverbs containing dogs. Chapter three is to show the major findings .Through the detailed analysis of Chinese and English for examples, we can get a good understanding of the expressive effect of the proverbs containing dogs and the differences and similarities between the two language’s proverbs. And we will know that there was a bit of misconception about the mon concept Chinese and English proverbs containing dogs. After analyzed the data reflected from two tables and charts. I try to explore the reasons that cause the difference and similarities including the influence of the culture difference, from which we can thoroughly prehend the proverbs containing dogs. Chapter four is the conclusion of this