Analysis Of Death Euphemism In Cross-cultural Communication

Euphemism is a long-standing linguistic and cultural phenomenon in both English-speaking nations and China. Death euphemism is an important component of it. The present thesis attempts to make a comprehensive study of English and Chinese death euphemism by contrastively analyzing their cultural characteristics and exploring the deep cultural connotations under this language phenomenon. Therefore it helps to smooth cross-cultural communication.This thesis is composed of six chapters.Chapter One, the introduction, presents a general view of euphemism and death euphemism. Previous studies of euphemism are also briefly stated.Chapter Two provides the theories needed for the analysis of death euphemism, mainly the theory of the context of culture and Florence Kluckhohn's Five Orientations.Chapters Three, Four and Five are the main bodies of this thesis.Chapter Three first discusses the cultural motivation of death euphemism, and then gives a detailed description of both English and Chinese death euphemism providing the necessary materials for chapter four.Chapter Four makes a contrastive analysis of death euphemisms in both cultures from three aspects, namely, cultural patterns, religions and social customs. In the analysis of cultural patterns, this thesis adopts Florence Kluckhohn's Five Orientations.Chapter Five gives clues of how to use death euphemisms properly in cross-cultural communication, and also states the importance of learning the deep cultural connotationsunder each language.Chapter Six is the conclusion of the whole thesis.