英汉委婉语文化内涵比较.docVIP

Ⅰ Introduction Euphemism is a common linguistic phenomenon in different cultures. From the moment it is created, it plays an important role in peoples daily communication. They are embedded so deeply in our language that most of us, even those who pride themselves on being plainspoken, never get through a day without using them. Like a kind of lubrication, it enables people to express what cant be uttered directly. As Robert Burchfield wrote in his book Fair of Speech: The Uses of Euphemism, a language without euphemisms would be a defective instrument of communication . Rawson has also points out that To some extent, actually, euphemisms are societys basic common language. However, this language phenomenon is often neglected by us. Until today the euphemism studies are very few and most of these studies are confined to individual language, and there is a shortage of contrastive research between languages. To unveil the universal and peculiar features of euphemisms and to better understand euphemism in a particular language, a contrastive study is a must. This thesis makes a contrastive study of English and Chinese euphemism with an attempt to explore and demonstrate the differences and similarities between the two linguistic phenomenon in the hope of enlightening and guiding English learners a bit in their language learning, translation studies, cross-cultural communication, etc. 1. 1 The origin of euphemism When talking about euphemisms, we cant neglect taboo. In ancient times, productivity was in a very low level, the primitives were often confronted with baffling and threatening situations and phenomena, such as death, and they failed to understand the essence of them. To find a way out, they became superstitious about supernatural power, or the existence of devils and gods. In their mind, everything was alive with spirit, capable of bringing down blessings and misfortunes, and thus language took upon a kind of supernatural sense. This led to t