英语毕业论文54：中英死亡委婉语对比分析

1、中英死亡委婉语对比分析death euphemisms between chinese and english: a contrastive analysisabstracteuphemism is a typical and common cultural phenomenon in both chinese and english communities, which has a long standing history. death euphemism, which plays a vital role in linguistics, is an important component

2、 of euphemism. the thesis tends to make a contrastive analysis of death euphemism between chinese and english under the two absolutely different culture characteristics and to explore the deep culture connotations under this language phenomenon.this thesis is composed of five parts:part one, the int

3、roduction, presents a brief view of euphemism and death euphemism. many previous researches of euphemism are stated and provide the definition of euphemism.part two, three and four are the main bodies of the whole thesis: part two provides the theoretical backgrounds and bases of death euphemism, ma

4、inly about “the theory of the context of culture” and american anthropologist florence kluckhohns “five orientation”. part three classifies chinese death euphemism and english death euphemism respectively. part four makes a contrastive analysis of death euphemism in chinese and english, mainly from

5、three aspects, namely, religions, social customs and cultural patterns.the last part is the conclusion of the whole thesis which aims at improving our understanding of other cultures as well as our own cultures, especially death cultures.key wordsdeath; euphemism; culture; difference摘要在中国和西方许多地区，委婉语

6、作为一种既典型又普遍的文化现象拥有悠久的历史。死亡委婉语是委婉语的重要组成部分，它在语言学中起着至关重要的作用。这篇论文将要在中西两种截然不同的文化特征下对死亡委婉语做对比分析，并且探讨在这种语言现象下深刻的文化内涵。这篇论文由五个部分组成：第一部分，导论，简单介绍委婉于和死亡委婉语,阐述先前多位学者对委婉语的研究并且给委婉语下定义。第二，三，四部分是整篇论文的主体部分： 第二部分为死亡委婉语提供理论背景和基础，主要运用了“语境说”以及美国人类学家florence kluckhohns 的“五个价值取向”。第三部分分别对中英死亡委婉语进行分类。第四部分主要从三个方面即宗教，社会风俗和文化模式对

7、中英死亡委婉语进行对比分析。最后一部分是整篇论文的结论, 希望通过对死亡委婉语的对比分析，在理解自己国家文化的同时对其他国家的文化有所了解，特别是对死亡文化有所了解。关键词死亡；委婉语； 文化； 差异 introductionboth chinese and english communities have certain notions that people try to mention indirectly, even then there is such a term in this language. since words related to unpleasant things

8、would make people feel uncomfortable. therefore, when people mentioned such notions, the user will substitute a different or an indirect term that sounds better than the direct one.the english word “euphemism” comes from the greek eu, meaning “well” or “sounding good”, and pheme, meaning “speech” or

9、 “saying” that is, speaking with good words or better manners. death is the most terrible event to human being. as a consequence, it is a forbidden area in every culture. to avoid mentioning directly, the word “euphemisms” are created to substitute for it. death euphemism is not only linguistic phen

10、omenon, but also a cultural phenomenon, which can reflect the traditional value, religion, and social customs of the nations. in both chinese and english death euphemisms has been applied more than before. paying attention to the various death euphemisms that are commonly used may improve our unders

11、tanding about societys attitudes toward death. . euphemism and death euphemismmore and more educated and non-educated people use euphemisms today. among the euphemisms, death euphemisms are playing an important role when people communicate with others.a. previous studies of euphemismeuphemism has lo

12、ng been discussed by scholars for a long time. hugh rawson (1981), leech (1985), 张拱贵（1996）etc. researched it in their respective fields . the major concern of scholars like hugh rawson, neaman & sliver (1983) and ayto (1993), 刘纯豹 （1990）和 张拱贵（1996）is to collect and categorize euphemism for dictionari

13、es. these scholars studies are mainly focus on or restricted in three areas: dictionary compiling, rhetoric, and semantics. however, those linguists concerned with the details of language structure pay little attention to the context in which speech is embedded or to the conditions which the socio-c

14、ultural factors use. there will lacks systematic and contrastive analysis with theoretical support. the brief review of euphemism, especially death euphemism, is that since death euphemism is a socio-cultural language phenomenon, the study of death euphemism should consider its cultural context.b. d

15、efinition of euphemismhugh rawson (1981) says: “euphemism is societys basic lingua franca (通用交际语). as such, they are outward and visible signs of our inward anxieties, conflicts, fears and shames. they are like radioactive isotopes (放射性同位素). by tracing them, it is possible to see what has been and i

16、s going on in our language, our mind, our culture.” according to allan and burridge(1991), the definition of euphemism is:a euphemism is used as an alternative to a dislike expression, in order to avoid possible loss of face: either ones own face or, through giving offence, that of the audience, or

17、of some third party. . theoretical backgrounds and basesthis chapter mainly provides social-linguistic theories concerning the context of culture that serves as the theoretical bases in death euphemism. and, florence kluckhohns five orientation for the contrastive analysis of cultural patterns illus

18、trated.a. context of cultureaccording to malinowski (1923), context can be distinguished into three types: context of utterance, context of situation and context of culture. the context of utterance here is similar to the linguistic context that later scholars argue, which refers to the words and se

19、ntences in which a particular words or sentences embeds. malinowski further argues that the concept of context has to be broadened and that the situation in which words are uttered can never be passed as irrelevant to the linguistic expression. therefore, he put forth the term “context of situation

20、to refer to the wider idea of context or the general conditions under which a language is spoken.” and the context of culture, malinowski observes that it is the reality of the culture, the life and the customs of a person in which language is essentially rooted. to sum up, malinowski find that to u

21、nderstand the meaning of what is said, we should not only consider the particular context of utterances, but also take into account the culture characteristic of the society.later, j.r.forth maps the notions of context of situation into a general theory of levels of language. forth makes very little

22、 use of context of culture. the notion of culture as a context for a language is more fully articulated in the work of his contemporaries sapir and whorf.sapir does not adopt the expression of context of culture, but he does interpret the language as expressing the mental life of its speakers. both

23、of sapir and whorf.sapir developed their powerful view called “sapir-whorf hypothesis” which the culture provides the context within words are interpreted. this thesis also adopt the context of the theories of famous linguists at home, 冯广艺(1997) has the following classification of context.macro-cont

24、ext include: social context, context of physical context, non-verbal context. the context of politics, context of time, context of nationality, context of communication and context of culture are under the social context. there are three categories under the sub-branch “context of culture”, namely,

25、context of national culture, context of religion, context of social-customs. the following chapter will analyze the cultural differences of death euphemism in chinese and english from the three aspects respectively.b. florence kluckhohns five orientationsamerican anthropologist, florence kluckhohn (

26、1961) identified five orientations, that is, five categories of beliefs and behaviors for comparing cultural values. every culture has to work out solutions to these issues. every human group needs to adapt to the natural world and has to order relationships among members of the group. each culture

27、has done this and continues to do it in its own way, but some similar values in the practices of various cultures are identification. in each orientation, there are three basic values. theoretically people can use these to analyze a culture and figure out which of the three values it most often uses

28、 to solve the issues for each of the orientation, but this approach also has limitations. let us consider a chart to express the differences of basic values between chinese and english briefly.orientation basic values chinese values western values (english values)human nature basically evil mixture

29、of good and evil basically good basically good basically evilrelationship to nature nature controls humans harmony with nature humans control nature harmony with nature humans control naturesense of time past present future past futureactivity being-who you are growing-becoming doing-what you are do

30、ing being-who you are doing-what you are doingsocial relationship hierarchy group individual hierarchy individual. classification of death euphemism in chinese and englishthere are many different kinds of death euphemisms in both chinese and english. the following passage will express them respectiv

31、ely.a. death euphemism in chinese1. death of religious peopletaoism and buddhism are playing important roles in chinese culture. different chinese death euphemisms have different explanations. according to zhuangzi (庄子), “death is nothing but a “rest”，when death befalls me, i begin my rest.” “蜕化” (t

32、uihua) (lit. ecdysis) used as death is also like a circle to be shelled. reincarnation is the dominant belief of taoism. the goal in taoism is to achieve 道 ( tao), means to find the way. “道山” (daoshan).“瑶池”(yaochi) and “蓬莱”(penglai) are some of the places where they live. “仙化”(xianhua),“遗形”(yixing)

33、and “瑶池添座”(yaochitianzuo)are death euphemisms in taoism.( 张拱贵 1996)sanskrit “virvana” (death) was translated into chinese “涅磐”(niepan) (lit. the state of being awake) and “圆寂”(yuanji) indicate that death is the best choice for him as he practices buddhism to a perfect level. buddhism to a successful

34、 end , he will pass away while sitting cross-legged, in a peaceful mind, which is named “坐化”(zuohua) (lit. be converted while sitting). the highest recognition for “death” in buddhism is “登莲台”(dengliantai)（lit. to step on a buddhas seat in the form of a lotus flower）. if one try ones best to contrib

35、ute to the others and society will live a better life after his death while if one doing evil deeds he will receive treatment after his death. so, benevolent people after death called “升天”(shengtian) (lit. to go to heaven), “成仙”(chengxian) (lit. to become immortals) or “到西天极乐世界”(daoxitianjileshijie)

36、 ( lit. to go to the western world of happiness). on the other hand, evil people will “下地狱”(xiadiyu) ( lit. to go to hell) or “见阎王”(jianyanwang) ( lit. to meet the god of death). “十八层地狱”(shibacengdiyu) ( lit. the hell which is divided into eighteen layers with different levels of tortures) is the mo

37、st malicious ones where will suffer all kinds of miseries in. (张拱贵 1996)2. death of monarch and commonchinese people behave according to their status and positions. therefore, there are many different death euphemisms for the death of different people. the death of emperor is “崩”(beng) has its expla

38、nation, “崩,山坏也”. (“崩” is big sound produced by the explosion of mountains). the effect of the death of emperor is no less than that of the explosion of mountains. “弃朝”qichao, “弃朝臣”(qichaochen), “弃群臣”(qiqunchen), 弃臣民”(qichenmin) and “弃天下”(qitianxia) also widely used. “宫车上仙”(gongcheshangxian) (lit. th

39、e king goes to the heaven by sedan chair) and “宫车远驭”(gongcheyuanyu) (lit. the king goes to a far away place by sedan chair) are just white lies used to express the death of emperor.( 刘纯豹 1990)the commonest practice is to compare death to sleep. “睡着了”(shuizhaole), “安”(an) and “长”(chang) are two popul

40、ar words that chinese like to use when someone dead. “百年”(bainian) and “百岁”(baisui) are used to denote the meaning of death. it is not surprising to use “断气”(duanqi), “气绝”(qijue) and “咽气”(yanqi) to refer to death. “闭眼”(biyan) and “瞑目”(mingmu) are used to refer to the death without regret.( 刘纯豹 1990)

41、 3. death of othersthere are also death euphemisms which express the death of loyal people, death of young, death of beauty and death of others. the character “殉”(xun) which means to die for some meaningful career. “殉国”(xunguo),“殉难”(xunnan), “殉义”(xunyi) and “殉道”(xundao) are just for this case. the s

42、oldiers are not frightened by the words as “亡”(wang), “没”(mo) or “役”(yi). so “阵亡”(zhenwang) “阵没”(zhenmo) and “阵役”(zhenyi) are occurred to express the death of soldiers.(张宇平 1998)chinese culture are noble and immortal, chinese scholars are indirect to compare themselves to jade which is a kind of pre

43、cious stone symbolizes constancy and nobility. so “玉折”(yuzhe), “玉催”(yucui), and “玉碎”(yusui) gradually became death euphemisms to express the death of chinese scholars. “地下修文”(dixiaxiuwen) and “修文地下”(xiuwendixia) are used to express the scholars who regard writing as their lives, even after death, th

44、ey continue to writing underground. “栋梁”(dongliang) is used to the people who has talents and devoted his or her talents to the nations. thus, the destruction of pillars connote the death of such talents people as “梁催”(liangcui) and “梁坏”(lianghuai).( 刘纯豹 1990)death of youth is named “夭”(yao)释名.释桑制ex

45、plained “少壮而死曰夭, 如取物中夭也”. so “夭亡”(yaowang), “夭逝”(yaoshi), “夭殁”(yaomo) and “夭殂”(yaocu) were occurred. 说文解字explained “殇, 不成人也. 人年十九至十六死为长殇, 十五至十二死为中殇, 十一至八岁死为下殇”. (“殇” means death of those who never grow up. death between 19 and 16 is “长殇”, 15 and 12 is “中殇”, 11 and 8 is “下殇”)( 刘纯豹 1990).as filial pie

46、ty is important in chinese family, parents mean big wealth to children; they provide home and spiritual support to their children. so the death of parents means a lot to a family. the term “大故”(dagu) (lit. a big event) is used to express one of the most important events happened in ones life. other

47、death euphemisms as “见背”(jianbei), “弃背”(qibei), “弃养”(qiyang), “违养”(weiyang), “失恃”(shishi) (lit. death of mother) and “失怙”(shihu) (lit. death of father) are used to express the death of parents which as a big blow to people living. a famous chinese scholar 韩婴 once said: “树欲静而风不止, 子欲养而亲不待也”(lit. the t

48、rees want to stand still, but the wind blows; the children want to be filial, but the parents are no more). in the phrase, this comparison “风树”(fengshu) and “风枝”(fengzhi) became death euphemisms for parents.( 刘纯豹 1990)“佩兰”(peilan) and “蕙草”(huicao) are derived from “兰心蕙质”(lanxinhuizhi) symbolized bea

49、uty. the destruction of those plants are borrowed to refer to thedeath of beauty as “蕙损兰摧”(huisunlancui). beauties are pure and precious as jade and pearls. thus, there are death euphemisms as “珠残玉碎”(zhucanyusui) and “玉碎珠沉”(yusuizhuchen) used to express the death of beauty.( 刘纯豹 1990) b. death euphe

50、mism in english1. death of religious peoplechristianity has a dominant influence in english-speaking countries. there are many death euphemisms in bible to show the respect of christians to god. sir allan, k.& burridge (1991)s “sleep the sleep that knows not breaking” has religious origin. “asleep”

51、performs the same function. “fall asleep” is a common death euphemism carved on gravestones. others death euphemisms as “asleep in the arms of god” and “asleep in the lord” are also used by many people. heaven in the christian tradition is the most people who want to dwell after they died. so “in he

52、aven” and “with jesus” occurred. heaven is the souls true home and the world the dead called “to be taken home” or “be called home”. some phrasal verbs incorporating “over” imply the spiritual existence of the soul after death, for instance, “go over”, “cross over the great divide” or “cross over th

53、e river jordan”. if someone is bereaved want to ease the pain called “being at rest”, “of being laid to rest”, “to have found rest”, “at peace” or “peace at last”. other widely used prepositional phrases brought out by religions as in “god took her to himself” or “he was gathered to his father or an

54、cestor”.2. death of hospital and maritimedeath is a common scene in hospital, medical workers created amount of death euphemisms to relief the pain of the relatives and friends of the dead. so “to check out” occurred. in western hospitals, patients who are “out of pain or have breathed their last” a

55、re described as “to check out”, which means to leave hospital. if one is checked out, he is no longer with us, or “has gone under” meaning gone under the level of consciousness or of measurable vital signs associated with life. the term “to pull the plug” was popularized by the karen quinlan case (1

56、925-1976), one in which a comatose patients vital functions were maintained by life support machines. whether to turn off the machines-and thus perhaps permit her to die-was the agonizing ethical question of pulling the plug. the expression itself is an earlier one, which means to withdraw ones supp

57、ort from or expose another person to danger or unhappiness. it implies the still earlier image of unplugging a bath or barrel and thus permitting “the water of life to run out”.pye chamberlain noted in the new york times (1981) that the reagan administration had coined many new words for taxes, amon

58、g he cited income enhancement. he noted that in those days nothing in life is certain but “negative patient care outcome and income enhancement”. because of his words, this death euphemism came into being.many western countries are noted for their well-developed navigation. therefore, death euphemis

59、m takes a significant part in peoples daily language. davy jones locker is the nickname of the sea. when a sailor dies in the sea unfortunately called he will just go to davy jones locker. other euphemisms as “to slip off”, “slip ones cable”, “coiled up”, “hit the rocks” and “the last voyage” are also used nowadays in many english-speaking countries. (rawson, hugh 1981)3. death of othersmany military death euphem