禁忌语在中英文化中的对比毕业论文

1、【标题】禁忌语在中英文化中的对比 【作者】吴 晓 晓 【关键词】比较；禁忌语；文化 【指导老师】曾 文 武 【专业】英语 【正文】i. introductionwith the development of society, communication between countries becomes more and more frequent. therefore, international communication is very important between countries. taboo reflects every corner of the different so

2、cial lives both in chinese and english culture, so understanding the differences between chinese and english taboos can be of great help for cross-cultural communication. due to different historical and cultural backgrounds, the ranges of taboo are not the same. different countries or nations have q

3、uite different understandings of taboos. during the process of cross-cultural communication, taboo brings many troubles. how to avoid talking about taboo in communication seems particularly important. understanding the differences between chinese and english taboos will appropriately help cross-cult

4、ural communication.according to the instruction of materials and investigation, at present, people have made some achievements on language taboo study. generally speaking, most scholars and linguists study it from the angles of rhetoric, folklore, history, and culture, while the research from the so

5、cial and pragmatic perspective is not enough. for instance, ji hui was written by zhao huiping in 1990, this book just analyzes some living examples to discusses and studies the phenomenon of language taboo, and another book examples of historical taboos (shi hui ju li) was written by chen yuan

6、 in 1962, it just studies taboo from the angle of history. they seldom compare taboos between chinese and english from social and pragmatic perspective.this paper falls into six parts. part one provides the introduction of this paper. part two presents the profile of taboo, which including definitio

7、n of taboo, features of taboo and functions of taboo. part three analyzes the commonalities of taboos from four aspects: sacrilegious taboos, abusive taboos, obscene taboos and taboos of disease and death. part four compares the pragmatic differences of taboos from angles of color words, addressing

8、words, privacy, social interaction and number. part five focuses on the causes for the differences of taboos between chinese and english culture, covering cultural backgrounds, behavioral principles and value standards. the last part makes the conclusion on this paper.  ii. profile of tabo

9、othe term taboo is of polynesian origin “tabu” on tongan archipelagoes. it originally refers to those holy facts or objects which can not be spoken or touched. 1 it was firstly noted by captain james cook, a british sailor, during his visit to tonga in 1771. when he came to the islands in the s

10、outh pacific, he observed many strange social phenomena. for example, some objects could only be used by their leaders or only by gods, but some can only be used by common people. some objects can only be used for special purposes, but some only for general purposes. the local people call this pheno

11、menon “tabu”, which means “to be holy or untouchable”. cook introduced the term into the english language, from which it achieved widespread currency and was spelled as “taboo” in english. taboos were most highly developed in the polynesian societies of the south pacific, but virtuall

12、y they have been presented in all cultures. from its origins in polynesian society, the word taboo has spread throughout the english speaking world.a taboo is a strong social prohibition or ban relating to any area of human activity or social custom. it excludes something from use, approach, or

13、 mention because of their sacred and inviolable nature. today, the word “taboo”, as a special noun for this kind of special phenomenon, is brought to sociology and anthropology, linguistics and other fields. just as hass m.r. in interlingual word taboos said, “taboos exist in many importan

14、t etiquettes and customs of ones life from his/her birth to his/her death”.2there are two aspects of taboo: one is that objects, being respected, can not be used freely, the other is that objects, being despised, can not be touched freely. in a broader sense, taboo exists in all known cultures, refe

15、rring to certain acts, objects or relationships which the society wishes to avoid. in other words, taboo consists of behavioral taboo and verbal taboo. generally speaking, behavioral taboo causes verbal taboo. verbal taboo indicates “a total or partial prohibition of the use of certain words, e

16、xpressions and topics in social interaction”3 a. features of taboo1. universality language taboo exists in the world among all ethnic groups, both in primitive society and civilized society, in china and in the west, language taboo is prevalent. that is to say, as soon as people come to th

17、e world, various taboos restrict peoples speeches and acts.2. nationalitynationality also can be called specialty. “language is the symbol of culture, culture is the   track of language.”4a nations culture can be reflected in a nations language, and language taboo is of no except

18、ion. and the cultural patterns of various nations have their own personalities and characteristics. because of the differences of the social systems, concepts of values, customs and life styles in different countries, different countries and nations have different taboos. in english, most taboo word

19、s related to religion, crime, alcoholism and the emancipation of women, but most chinese taboos are only related to titles.3. close connection with timeslanguage is changing constantly, taboo is not immutable. the taboo language of one era may become daily language of another era. with the developme

20、nt of society, the verbal taboo will be changed. for example, the idea of “pregnancy” has undergone such a change: “she has cancelled all her social engagements (1856); she is in an interesting condition (1880); she is in a delicate condition (1895); she is knitting little b

21、ootees (1910); she is in a family way (1920); she is expecting (1935); she is pregnant (1956);”5from the above sentences, we can easily find that pregnancy, which was considered to be taboo from the 1856, was mentioned explicitly 100 years later. therefore, the taboo is a relativ

22、e concept.b. functions of tabooin normal circumstances, people often use euphemism in order to show respect and avoid vulgarity and unpleasantness. however, this does not mean that verbal taboo has any values. instead, in certain specific circumstances, people often deliberately use verbal taboo to

23、achieve certain specific purposes.1. to enhance the moodtaboo can be used to enhance the mood. for example:the referee fucked us.he really fucked us on the last question.6from the two sentences, we can see that the word “fuck” is not used in the original meaning. in the first sentence, it means

24、 too many fouls, and the second is “baffled”. we can use the verbal taboo to express strong feelings through the enhancement of language, such as anger or surprise. therefore, sometimes people will tend to use strong language to vent strong feelings.2. to attack other peopletaboo is the abusive

25、 language with a functional vocabulary. under normal circumstances, people should not use such terms, such as “jesus christ”, “god damn you” ,“shit”, “hell”, “cunt”, “fuck” and so on.3. to attract peoples attentionwhen people feel that they are ignored, they may use tab

26、oo words to arouse others attention, as these words are often more strident. it shows that taboo is also contradictory. on one hand, it is “taboo”, but on the other hand, it has surprising effects for using.generally speaking, there are commonalities and differences in any culture and any verba

27、l taboo. being conscious of this, we are able to know what can be said or not in cross-cultural communication. iii. commonalities of taboos in chinese culture and english culturein every culture, there seems to be certain unmentionable words and topics that shouldnt be brought up or put straigh

28、t forward as a result of religion or custom. taboos are those of such strong affective connotations that they cannot be used in polite discourse. taboo words, roughly speaking, fall into four types: sacrilegious taboos, abusive taboos, obscene taboos and taboos of disease and death.a. sacrilegious t

29、aboossacrilege, by the name, is the word or act showing contempt for the name(s) of god or holy things. in certain societies, words with religious connotations are considered as profane when used outside of formal or religious ceremonies. in the west, most people are religious so that they regard th

30、e name of god as forbidden subject and not allow anyone to mention it except on some rare occasions. according to leonard bloomfield, a famous american social linguist, “there are many religious terms in english, such as god, devil, heaven, hell, christ, jesus and so on. these terms can only be

31、 used in serious speeches. if someone violates the rule, the speaker will be condemned by people.”7 for this reason, many jews manage to avoid mentioning “god” and jewish students distort “god of medicine” into “g-d of medicine”. even in the bible, there is one rule from the ten comma

32、ndments “thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain; for the lord will not hold him guiltless that take his name in vain.”8 in addition, the name of the devil is not allowed to be spoken of, for people believe that he is sure to appear if his name is spoken of. therefore, “th

33、e devil” is replaced by the deuce, old harry, old nick, goodman, his sable majesty, etc. chinese is under the influence of confucian virtue. the etiquette of confucius requires appropriate language in social activities, not lie or talk nonsense. in chinese saying: “the religious can not to lie.

34、”  b. abusive taboosabusive words in all societies are considered as taboo in all societies. they are not used, or at least, not in “polite company”. when an act is taboo, the mention of this act may also become taboo. that is, if you are forbidden to do something, you are forbidden t

35、o talk about it.from primitive society to modern society, some abusive words are forbidden in public. because these words are usually offending to people. some animal names can be used to abuse someone, such as bitch, cow, and swine. the british parliament had published a verbal table which was not

36、suited to be used for parliament, because there were many abusive words, such as cheeky, liar, prevaricating, fascist. but in some chinese and western films, these abusive taboos often appear. these words are used in order to increase the effectiveness of films. in english, these words are composed

37、of four english letters and are called four-letter words. in modern society, although they have right to use these four-letter words, they are still very sensitive to them. so, these words must be not misused. in chinese culture, there are also a lot of abusive words and indecent languages, which ca

38、n not be used in normal circumstances. now, in every culture, people advocate the civilized and polite languages. in order to communicate successfully, people should not use these abusive words to avoid embarrassment.c. obscene taboos  obscenities are another kind of taboo words which are

39、mainly concerned with the sexual organs and acts, and some other parts of the human body, such as screw, balls, prick, arse, fat, cunt, etc. actually obscenities are tabooed in any human language and culture. the educated refuse to use them. we can encounter this kind of taboos in colloquial english

40、 for the purpose of curse or emphasis. they are more strictly prohibited than profanities because they offend the moral ethics. for example: fuck you! bugger off! he is a stupid prick! in the serious literary books or magazines, these expressions can never get any chance to appear and are replaced b

41、y the corresponding euphemisms. there is another typical example here. when we talk with friends, relatives or colleagues, sometimes, we may mention the excretion, but we try not to be rude, so we also use euphemisms here. for example,  the westerners say “to wash ones hand”, “to spen

42、d a penny” “to see ones ant” “to answer the call of nature” and very interestingly in chinese, there are the corresponding saying “减轻负担”to“to relief oneself” “去一号”to “to go to number one”. besides these, chinese has its special saying “出恭”, “去方便一下”，etc.d. taboos of

43、 disease and deathone of the terms that seem to be universally avoided is death. of course, death is also a taboo topic. mans birth, aging, sickness and death are natural phenomena and everyone cannot resist them. but to die is the most unfortunate thing and is very horrible and mysterious in most p

44、eoples eyes. people dislike talking about death or something about death. for example, people wouldnt directly talk about cancer, because people are afraid of it. so, people often use “the big c” or “terminal illness” to avoid using “cancer”. there is another example, the american do

45、not want to say the word “die” directly just as chinese do not want to say “si”(死). as long as there is any taboo, there will be corresponding euphemism. so, to express the meaning of death, in english, people say “pass away”, “be no more”, “join the majority”, “pay the

46、 debt to nature”, “to go to a better world”, “to fall asleep”, “to kick the bucket” to substitute for death. chinese people usually say “去了”, “不在”, “走了”, “逝世”, etc. in china, there are different euphemisms because of the different identities and the ages of death.

47、in ancient times, the death of the emperor is so called “mortality”. all the phrases or expressions above show positive or at least neutral feelings towards the deceased person.iv. differences of taboos between chinese culture and english culturelinguistic taboo reflects a nations culture, hist

48、ory, tradition and psychology. different taboos in different countries have different connotations. when we communicate with foreigners, we often misunderstand each other. it is not difficult to see that there are great differences between chinese and english taboos. so, knowing the taboos of other

49、cultures could avoid conflicts, and the communication can be preceded smoothly.a. differences of taboos for the color wordsthere are two aspects of color taboo: on one hand, social communities forbid an individual to use a certain color, on the other hand, an individual restrains himself or herself

50、to use a certain color. some color taboos stem from colors visual impressions from physics, chemistry, and physiology. but most of them originate from colors emotional and symbolic effects, namely peoples comprehension. as a cultural phenomenon, color taboos will weaken and disappear with the develo

51、pment of the society, but many new understandings will be produced.1. yellowin china, yellow is associated with sex and nearly everything that has relation to yellow is the target of attack nowadays. however, in ancient times, yellow is the symbol of chinese emperor, representing highly respectable,

52、 and the divine right of kings, sacred and inviolable power. yellow, the royal color used by the emperors, represents sacred and inviolable power, divine right and authority, and commoners were not allowed to wear yellow until modern times. in ming and qing dynasty, the roofs of the imperial palace,

53、 royal ancestral temple and other royal buildings are all yellow. yellow is also given the meaning of fairness. the five stars of the five-starred red flag, national flag of the peoples republic of china, are yellow.yellow is a central color, its deity is huang di, who is legendary ruler and ancesto

54、r of the chinese nation. the chinese word for yellow, “huang”, sounds like the word for “royal”, and thus was chosen thousands of years ago as the exclusive color for the imperial household. under the penalty of death, no chinese person other than the emperor was permitted to be clothed in

55、 any shade of yellow or gold. yellow is bright and cheerful color. but in the english language, yellow is associated with jaundice and cowardice. in american slang, a coward is said to have a “yellow belly.” it can also mean that something is tainted, as in the expression “yellow journalis

56、m”. in english culture, yellow makes people think of judas, who betrayed jesus, because in the western painting, judas is always portrayed as wearing yellow dress. in america, yellow contains expectation, missing, and yearning for the return of their far-away relatives. when the american hostages de

57、tained by iran returned to their own country, the american raised the yellow paper, yellow silk, adoring the yellow memorial chapter to welcome them.   2. whitein china, white is the color of mourning and death. chinese people call wedding “red matters”, while bereavement “w

58、hite matters”. during funeral, mourning dress, mourning hat is unanimously white. hence, the white turns into fierce color in daily life, which causes fear and disgust. in traditional opera, “white face” symbolizes betrayal and duplicity. on stage, the role of cao caos face is white. however, t

59、he western people think that white is elegant, clean and pure, so it is widely appreciated .thus, it is the traditional bridal color of western weddings. in the bible, angel always grows a pair of pure white wings. in america, the white house in washington dc is official residence of the presid

60、ent and is the symbol of national power. whitehall in london is a street where there are many government offices. formal document published by western nation is called “white paper”.b. differences of taboos in addressing wordscommunication is firstly reflected on address. when people communicat

61、e with each other, if they do not address properly, it will result in unhappiness, and even conflict. in particular, with the modern globalization of economy, address words play an important role in the communication. as a social etiquette, address is a part of culture because it always reflects the relationship between people. because of different cultural values, people in d