An Intercultural Comparative Research Of Chinese And Foreign Euphemisms And Taboos

There used to be many studies on euphemism and taboo and even now there arestill a lot of studies on euphemism and taboo in both China and abroad. Howeverthere is no possibility of the exhaustion to the studies of language. It has the samesituation with taboo that has a long history as language itself and that reflects themost magical and fantastic aspect of language. People create euphemisms to take theplace of taboos. There is a standard of each nation for what is beautiful of its own.Something may be considered beauty in one nation however turned to be not so oreven considered ugliness in other nations. For most of the taboos are only the waysto distinguish things. So it is quite necessary for the purpose of inter-culturalcommunication and to take a comparative study of Chinese euphemisms and taboos.The previous studies made a key point on the creation and making mechanism ofeuphemisms and taboos from the viewpoint of anthropology and cognitivelinguistics at the same time on the description of the linguistics examples, howeverbe short of analysis; and on a lot of linguistic facts, absence of the studies of thegeneral features of the differences.The following discussions can be drawn by my study. First, even though thespecial linguistic phenomena of Chinese and English euphemisms and taboos share aquite alike birth, what else goes to be several same points in other phases but in moreaspects the differences are the dominant place. Chinese euphemism and taboos stresson taboos that tend to mean more of a negative use of language. They are not tingedwith heavy religious hue however take on much color of humanism. Training theindividual s moral charter is valued in Chinese euphemisms and taboos that has apurpose to reach a harmonious state of social relationships. English euphemisms andtaboos focus on euphemisms. They tend to be more of a positive use of language and they are heavily tinged with the religious belief of sin. They have a reflection of thedesire for pure soul in religion and the desire for elegant language of English. TheEnglish people want to extend the individual s influence and to transform the worldby means of language. These differences between Chines and English euphemismsand taboos are another way to show the different cultural traditions in China andaboard.I find through my study that the main distinctions upon the Chinese and foreignconventional civilizations are allowed to be regarded as two kinds of distinguishingconventional ideas: the harmoniousness of human beings and nature and the othergoes to be the differences between human beings and nature that predict the essentialdistinctions in Chinese and foreign conventional civilizations. Harmoniousness canbe treated to be equal to the greatest worth of Chinese conventional civilization. Theharmoniousness and the outlook of world which have the idea of the whole universeas a harmonious one with the thinking type that get great worth fromharmoniousness, there are deep influences on the conventional worth of China, alsothe individual faiths around life and custom faiths of the Chinese people, and theeffects can be reflexed upon Chinese euphemism and taboos. The distinguishing ofman from nature can date back to the traditional of the civilization of the foreigncountries. The implications of the distinctions are preferred to be the distinctionsbetween human beings and nature, as well the body and the soul, and the individualand social environment. That s the distinctions what makes a huge effect on religiousbeliefs of the English and the effects are duly reflected in English euphemisms andtaboos.At last, I can make a broader apprehension of the Chinese and foreigncivilization and make more effort to the intercultural communication through theresearch on disparate actions about linguistic on the conventional euphemisms ofChina and taboos: euphemisms and taboos are complicated. It s not hard for us tofollow the rules blindly without a comparatively systematic study of cultures. Indifferent societies different roles of language may result in contradictions ininter-culture communication. On the basis of the discussions above, I hope to make some suggestions for inter-culture communication for reference. Language teachingand cultural teaching should connect with each other. We could have a deepercomparative study of different cultures and own a better comprehension of differentcultures through language comparison.