| Euphemism is ubiquitous in both English and Chinese language and euphemisms can be used to replace taboo words and upsetting or embarrassing expressions in different areas in both English and Chinese cultures.This thesis focused on the comparisons of physiological euphemism in the two cultures,because improper use of physiological euphemism can easily give rise to misunderstanding in cross-cultural communications.Scholars home and abroad have paid lots of attention to the formation and cultural connotation of physiological euphemisms,but not much attention was paid to the tactful rating or the semantic vacancy of physiological euphemisms.This thesis focused on the study of tactful rating and the semantic vacancy of physiological euphemisms,and made comparisons of them between English and Chinese.Physiological euphemisms often involve birth,age,sickness,death,sex,and excretion.The research theory is based on culture and language,Polite Principle and tactful rating of euphemism in English and Chinese.The author divides euphemism into high-degree,medium-degree and low-degree euphemism on the basis of previous research findings according to the speaker’s emotional attitudes,the listener’s pleasure degree,the status differences between speaker and listener,the suitable situation as well as the pragmatic effect.The author uses contrastive analysis method to compare differences in tactful rating between English and Chinese physiological euphemism.In addition,this research collected data from The Dictionary of Chinese euphemism language by professor Zhang Gonggui and The Dictionary of English Euphemism by professor Liu Chunbao.Qualitative analysis is employed to classify excretion and death euphemism.Quantitative analysis is used to study the similarities and differences of excretion euphemism as well as death euphemism in English and Chinese and explore the reasons for these differences.This research has found that in excretion euphemism there is no semantic absence both in English and Chinese,and there are similarities and differences in the tactful rating.As for the death euphemism,there are great similarities and differences both in the tactful rating and the semantic absence.Finally the author of this thesis discussed the reasons for the similarities and differences in terms of religion culture,toilet culture and social values.The research also found that euphemism is constantly changing,for instance,English euphemism is less affected by religion in modern society.By doing this research,the author of this thesis has got a better understanding of the relationship between language and culture.Hopefully,this research can provide a theoretical guidance and practical value for the cross-cultural communication. |
