Comparative Analysis On Taboos Of English And Chinese

With the advancement of economic globalization, the communications between Chinese and the western are increasingly frequent. Cultural differences are the critical obstacle to communicate in intercultural communication. Therefore profound observation on cultural difference may contribute to more effective communication. Language is the carrier of culture, taboo, as part of the language, is inseparable, plays an important role in communication. Acquaint oneself with taboo and the expression of taboo in the form of euphemism makes a harmonious communication. A large number of studies have shown the relationship between culture and taboo; however, the studies of contrastive analysis between Chinese and English taboos, from the perspective of cultural differences and similarities, are seldom published.In the paper, I make a contrastive analysis about Chinese and English taboos, from the perspective of intercultural communication, by means of pragmatics, to summarize the differences and similarities and to achieve the strategies and methods of successful communication. Taboos often refer to certain words or certain topics, which people can't, wouldn't or don't want to say in communicative situations. Taboo can be divided into three categories: taboo words, name title and topic taboo. Chinese and Western cultural taboos include death, religion, superstition, and other languages, whereas they have different cultural connotation.