Death Euphemisms Between Chinese and English a Contrastive Analysis
Death Euphemisms Between Chinese and English: A Contrastive Analysis
Abstract
Euphemism 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 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 introduction, 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, mainly about “the theory of the context of culture” and American anthropologist Florence Kluckhohn’s “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 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 Words
Death; euphemism; culture; difference
摘 要
在中国和西方许多地区，委婉语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 Kluckhohn’s 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
Introduction
Both Chinese and English
Abstract
Euphemism 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 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 introduction, 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, mainly about “the theory of the context of culture” and American anthropologist Florence Kluckhohn’s “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 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 Words
Death; euphemism; culture; difference
摘 要
在中国和西方许多地区，委婉语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 Kluckhohn’s 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
Introduction
Both Chinese and English
Bibliography: [2] Ayto, John. Euphemisms. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Led. 1993. [4] Leech, G..N &M.H. Short. Style in fiction. A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. London: Longman. 1999. [5] Leech, G. English Grammar for Today. The Macmillan Press LTD. 1982. [6] Leech, G. Semantics. Haedmondsworth: Penguin Books, Ltd. 1985. [7] Malinowski,B. “The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Language.” The Meaning of Meaning. Ed. C.K. Ogden and I.A Richards. New York: Harcount Brace Jovanovich. 1923. [8] Ayto, John, C.G. Kind Words: A Thesaurus of Euphemisms. New York: Facts On File, Inc. 1983 [9] Rawson, Hugh [10] Samovar, L.A. et al. Communication between Cultures. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. 2000. [11] Concise Oxford Dictionary [14] 邓炎昌, 刘润清. 语言与文化. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社, 1989. [15] 冯广义. 语境适应论. 中央民族大学硕士毕业论文, 1997. [16] 刘纯豹. A Dictionary of Euphemism. 江苏： 江苏教育出版社, 1990. [17] 束定芳, 徐金元 [18] 张拱贵. 汉语委婉语词典. 北京： 北京语言文化大学出版社, 1996. [19] 张宇平. 委婉语. 北京： 新华出版社, 1998. B. Florence Kluckhohn’s Five Orientations American anthropologist, Florence Kluckhohn (1961) identified five orientations, that is, five categories of beliefs and behaviors for comparing cultural values