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According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “idiom” is a phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its inpidual and which must be learnt as a whole unit. (Hornby,1995:157)
An idiom is a fixed group of words with a special different meaning from the meanings of the separate words, in Longman Dictionary of English Idioms (Long,1979:389).
An idiom is an accepted phrase, construction, or expression contrary to the usual patterns of the language or having a meaning different from the language or having a meaning different from the literal, written in Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language (Guralnik,1988:434).
Generally speaking, English idioms include proverbs, sayings and Siamese twins. The Chinese equivalence for “idiom” is “俗语”(sú yǔ). In a broad sense, it can be pided into: common sayings, set phrases, proverbs, a two -part allegorical sayings, and some vulgar expressions.
From the above definitions, we know that idiom has its own specific features . Firstly, idiom must be well accepted and established. Elements of an idiom can not be changed without destroying the sense as a whole. Secondly, an idiom usually acquires an implication. For example, the idiom “a storm in a tea-cup” does not really mean a storm broke out in a tea-cup but means somebody makes a fuss about doing something. A speaker knowing the meaning of “a storm” and “tea-cup” separately still can not understand the idiom accurately.
The definition of folk culture is that a folk culture is a small isolated, cohesive, conservative, nearly self-sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race with a strong family or clan structure and highly developed rituals. Order is maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family and interpersonal relationships are strong. Folk culture is paramount, and change comes infrequently and slowly. It strongly influences language. So idiom, as the cream of language, is strongly influenced by folk culture.
This thesis studies English and Chinese food idioms from the perspective of folk culture. A contrastive method will be taken to analyze the similarities and the differences of food idioms between English and Chinese to help people have a better understanding of the different folk cultures. It contains five parts. Introduction states the significance, method, framework and modern researches of the thesis. The second part is a brief review of food idioms such as definition, features, the relationship between folk culture and food idioms. Differences between English and Chinese food idioms are illustrated in the third part. The fourth part of this thesis lists the reasons for the differences between English and Chinese food idioms. The last part is a summary of the whole paper including the significance and limitations of this study.
2. Literature Review
Both native English-speaking countries and China have a long history and both have a large number of food idioms. Food idioms have been studied at home and abroad. At home, As early as 1958, Chinese famous translator Zhang Peiji published How to Translate Chinese Idioms into English in which translator Zhang studied the sources of idioms, problems people met when they read foreign idioms and the translating skills for the idiom translation. In their book English-Chinese Idioms and Folk Cultures, Yin Li and Han Xiaoling (2007) made great efforts in comparing idioms and folk cultures. Abroad, the study of idiom started earlier. In 1925, Smith published his book Words and Idioms, which is the early representative of idiom study. In 1960s, distinguished linguist Chomsky proposed the idiom Frozenness Hierarchy, which led to an epochal shift. Generally speaking, current idiom research tendencies are: Research scope is expanding constantly; idiom research is transforming from idiom theory to idiom application.