III Analysis

    In the following part ， I will illustrate by numeral samples to explain how to acknowledge and utilize culture differences in idiom translation to achieve the faithfulness to the original.

1 . On the one hand ， the function of idiom is that it is used to convey one's feelings ， or even to move the readers ， and to persuade the readers into thinking what the author is thinking about and sometimes in its unique culture ， the idiom's literal meaning might make no indication to the real sense ． Thus the culture differences between two languages require that the translator should not take it for granted to just translate out all the original words ， but what he ／ she should do is to pass to the readers the “ feeling — tone” ( 即精神实质，参考何刚强编著《英汉口笔译技艺》，复旦大学出版社， 2003 年， 97 页 )of the original lines (feeling tone ， which is originated from the word “ Gefuhlston” in linguistics, simply means the meaning between the words) ．

    To successfully convey the ‘ feeling — tone ' of the original ， a translator should pay enough attention to the culture differences behind idioms ， and to analyze the characters and different classifications of idioms, generally the following three common translation methods can beapplied ：

    (1) Replacing the Source Language(to be shorted as SL in the following text)         image with a standard target language(to be shorted as TL)image ．
    (2) Literal translation plus sense and explanation ．
    (3) Converting the metaphor in idiom to meaning.

    Following are some examples applying the above methods ， please see how the culture differences between English and Chinese affect idiom and its translation and in the same time ， how the SL idiom can be translated correctly and properly ．

(1)Replacing the SL image with a standard TL image

    A common procedure for translating idioms is to replace the SL image with another “ established TL image if one exists that is equally frequent within the register ” (Newmark ， 1988 ： 109) ， please see some examples ：

“ Shed Crocodiles tears ”：
    This idiom comes from the western ancient legend ： when a crocodile eats a being or a beast ， it cries while eating ． It is used to explain that the bad pretend to feel pity for the victim. In this idiom ， the image is “ crocodile tears ”， while in Chinese we have a similar image “猫” in the similar and widely used expression ：“猫哭老鼠，假慈悲”， therefore, we can replace the crocodile tears with “猫”， and adopt the whole Chinese translation “猫哭老鼠” which has the same sense to the original ．

“ Among the blind ， the one-eyed man is king. ”：
    In Chinese culture ， we do have such a saying “ 山中无老虎，猴子称霸王”， in which the Chinese “老虎”与“猴子” and their connotations are similar to the English image “ the blind ” & “ the one-eyed man" ， and also the Chinese expression dose render the feeling — tone to the English idiom ． Thus ， it can be a proper Chinese translation to the original ．

Let's see two Chinese idioms ：

“牛不喝水强按头”，which means“ to try to impose one's will on somebody ”． Here we can easily see the animal “牛 ”is used ， but in English ， people never use “ OX”, they use horse ， the English idiom is “ you can take a horse to the water but you cannot make him drink” ， which conveys the same sense as the Chinese idiom ， therefore ， we can replace the Chinese image ／ vehicle “牛” with the English image “ Horse" ， and adopt the whole sentence as its English translation ．

“张三李四，阿猫阿狗”， this is a Chinese idiom that one often heard ． It connotes the very common people ． In English we does see frequently some common person's names like Tom ， Henry ， and Jack which express a culture connotation of the same as above in Chinese ． In this case ， we can just replace the “张三李四，阿猫阿狗” with Tom ， Harry and Jack while they will not be understood in the other language by just literal translations ．

    Compare the following idiomatic expressions with their translations ， and you would be noted that there is a difference in image indication between the idiom and its translation ：

    笑掉大 牙
    To laugh off one's head

    捡了 芝麻 ，丢了西瓜
    Penny wise ， pound foolish

    大海 捞针
    Look for a needle in a haystack

    爱屋及 乌
    Love me love my dog

    呆若木 鸡
    As dead as a doornail

    亚洲四小 龙
    Four tigers of Asia

    抛 砖 引 玉
    Throw a sprat to catch a wale