A Comparative Study of English and Chinese Euphemism on Death 英语专业(毕业论文).docVIP

A Comparative Study of English and Chinese Euphemism on Death 1. Introduction The word “euphemism” comes from Greek meaning “to speak favorably” or “good speech”. Chen Dingan (2004) said “Euphemisms are mild, pleasant, neutral, or inoffensive expressions used instead of harsh, blunt, coarse, or unpleasant ones”. They are often used because of courtesy or consideration for other people’s feelings. According to Sun Xianghua (2005), “the main feature of euphemism is that people use the abstract and vague concepts or metaphor to make the speakers could adopt a kind of indirect way while talking about something which is not suitable to speak in a direct way”. In this way, embarrassment can be avoided when talking about these things are necessary. Euphemism may be said to be lubricating oil of social communication by people. Enrigh (1985) said “the world will stop running because of obstruction, and people will full of hostilities if there is no euphemism.” Hudson (1980) regarded euphemism not only as a kind of linguistic phenomenon, but also a kind of cultural phenomenon. The most typical euphemism is “death”. The mystery of death and the fear of death make people not dare or unwilling to speak it directly. In language communication, people always avoid mentioning the word “death”. Therefore, the substitutes for death are made one after another in both English and Chinese. They have a variety of differences and similarities in both expressed formations and cultural connotations. This paper focuses on the differences and similarities of both English and HYPERLINK /search/Chinese+Euphemism.html Chinese Euphemism on death, which have a close relation with people’s life. Taking euphemism on death as an example to give a brief analysis on differences and similarities of both English and Chinese culture . 2. The Causes for the Use of Euphemism on Death 2.1 The fear of death leads to avoidance of speaking and talking about it. According to Bao Lihong (2000), “In ancient