Abstract:Language is the carrier of culture, and the only access to cultural knowledge for human is to acquire knowledge through language. The sociality of language reveals that it has an inseparable relationship with culture. It can be said that language is the life-blood of culture, and culture is the way of developing language. The influence of culture on language is mainly embedded in vocabulary, for it is the most sensitive, active and basic component of language. Bird words are an important part of human language, many of which reflect particular connotations in English and Chinese. Along with the rapid development of society, bird words with cultural differences play significant roles in the cross-communication and also cannot be ignored in the language learning.

    Throughout the history, birds are keeping a closest relationship with human beings, becoming a part of people’s life, because not only human beings’ existence and development partly rely on birds, but also people express or deliver emotions or feelings through birds. Birds play important roles in the life of human beings, so do bird words in language. Many birds have become a kind of symbolism in people’s thinking, which is reflected in language. However, owing to the influence of different factors, such as history and region, bird words with rich and various cultural connotations often result in misunderstandings in communications. In this thesis, therefore, the author will use an approach of brief contrast between English and Chinese language in order to probe the cultural connotations of bird words in English and Chinese. And in this way, the author would accomplish a task of fully understanding for bird words with cultural information. 

Key words: Bird Words  Cultural Connotation  Cross-communication  Contrast

摘要：语言是文化载体，人类只有通过语言才能掌握人类社会的文化知识。语言的这种“社会性”表明，它必然与文化有着不可分割的联系。可以说，语言是文化血液,文化是发展语言的途径。文化对语言的影响主要表现在词汇上,因为它是语言中最敏感、最活跃、最基本的组成部分。鸟类词汇是语言的一个重要的组成部分,英语和汉语中许多鸟类词汇都反映各自的文化内涵。随着社会的不断进步，具有明显文化差异的鸟类词汇不仅在中西文化的交流中起着重要作用，也成为语言学习中不可忽视的一个重要方面。

自古以来，鸟类与人类的生存与发展息息相关，已经成为人们生活的一部分。一方面,鸟类是人类重要的衣食来源之一;另一方面,人们通过鸟类来表达或传递情感。鸟类在人类生活中扮演着重要的角色，鸟类词汇在语言中也具有同样的作用。许多鸟类已经在人类思维中形成某种象征，并且体现在语言中。然而，由于不同的历史和地理等因素的影响,具有丰富内涵的鸟类词汇极易使人们在中西方文化交际中产生误解。因此,本文作者采用对比分析的方法,深入探讨英汉语鸟类词汇文化内涵的差异,从而能够充分理解词汇所承载的文化信息。

关键词：鸟类词汇  文化内涵　 跨文化交际  对比