It is generally considered that conversations are seldom proceeding with the understanding of the literal meaning of the sentence without any inferences.As far as intercultural communication is concerned,inference plays an indispensable role in oral communication.Unlike communication with people from the came culture,cross_ cultural communication cannot achieve success until the application of pragmatic rules and knowing conversational context and cultural activation.
The paper analyses the cultural differences in English and Chinese idioms from three aspects and tries to figures out the underlying reasons of those differences.It is necessary for us to understand and learn about the cultural differences between English and Chinese idioms and a good mastery of those differences can help us get rid of the communicative barriers and understanding barriers.
