In the first part, this paper presents definitions for culture and idiom。 Secondly, it probes into some cultural differences reflected in idioms。 Thirdly, this thesis focuses on strategies for idiom translation。

2。 Literature Review

As we all know, idiom translation is an important branch of translation。 The study on the contrast between Chinese and English idioms has got a rocket development since the late 1970s, and it has been a popular project for foreign and domestic language scholars。 There are some overseas researches on idioms like Makkai’s idiom structure, L。 P。 Smith’s book Words and Idioms and C。 Fernando’s Idioms and Idiomaticity。 In Makkai’s book, he classifies idioms into two types—encoding and decoding, and pays more attention to decoding the structure of the lexemic variety。 L。P。 Smith tells us something about the usage of idioms in English and he focuses on structural features rather than on the semantic aspect of idioms。 C。 Fernando classifies the English idioms into three kinds—ideational idiomatic expressions, interpersonal idiomatic expressions and relational idiomatic expressions。 

Some Chinese scholars also do some researches on idioms。 In 1978, the earliest article of the domestic research of English idiom writings, Learning English Idioms, was published。 Since then, many scholars committed themselves to the study of idioms。 In 1998, She Xianjun published an article called Understanding of the Idioms: Structure or Extraction in Psychological Science, and it marked the domestic study of idioms transferred from the period of traditional research to the stage of multi-theories based study。文献综述

Roughly estimated, there are over 60 papers, three monographs, and 15 Chinese-English dictionaries and brochures about the contrast between Chinese and English idioms。 However, these writings pay less attention to cultural differences in idiom translation。 

This thesis is intended to probe into the influence of cultural differences on idiom translation and the problems translators may encounter in idiom translation。 Idioms are the essence of language, and they are loaded with a nation’s cultural characteristics and information。 Due to idioms are concise and intelligible, more and more people are accustomed to using them in writing。 Chinese and English idioms different in environments, customs, values make idiom translation more difficult but fantastic。