英语专业-A Comarison beween Chinese and Wesern Taboos.doc

1、AbstractLanguage is the carrier of culture. Different country has its culture deeply rooted in its language, and in turn, the use and development of language have been greatly affected by the culture. So, learning a foreign language is to learn not only the vocabulary and grammar, but also know abou

2、t the culture. Linguistic taboo exists in almost every aspect of peoples life and is a universal social phenomenon both in China and the west. The same taboos in Chinese and English include aspects of death and funeral etc. Because of the different cultural background, ideologies and the concepts of

3、 value, there are some different taboos in aspects of privacy, religion and number etc. Sometimes, these similarities and differences bring a lot of troubles to cross-cultural communication. How to avoid these troubles? The most important is to have a good knowledge of the taboo culture and use euph

4、emism. This paper would help people improve their ability of cross-cultural communication and achieve better communicational effects by comparative analysis.Key words Chinese and Western, taboos, culture, Comparison摘要语言是文化的载体，不同国家的文化都深深地根植于它的语言中。反过来，语言的应用和发展也受到文化很大的影响。因此，学习一国语言不仅要学习它的词汇和语法，还要学习其文化。语

5、言禁忌存在于人们生活的各个方面，是一种中西方普遍存在的社会现象 在汉英两种语言中，有一些禁忌语是一致的。如”死”和”葬礼”等方面。但是由于中西方文化背景、意识形态、价值观念等的不同，其禁忌语也有一些差异，如在个人隐私，宗教及数字禁忌等方面。这些异同有时会给跨文化交际带来麻烦。如何避免这些麻烦，最重要的是充分了解中西方禁忌文化以及使用适当的委婉语。本文旨在通过对比分析汉英禁忌语来帮助人们提高跨文化交际的能力，从而达到理想的交际效果。关键词 中西方，禁忌语，文化，对比ContentsIntroduction.1Chapter Evolution of Linguistic Taboos.21.1

6、Primitive Superstitious Stages.21.2 Feudal Patriarchal Stage.31.3 Modern Democratic Stage.3Chapter Similarities of English and Chinese Taboos.42.1 In language.4 2.1.1 In Pronunciation.42.1.2 In Vocabulary.52.2 In life.62.2.1 About Death.62.2.2 About Funeral.7Chapter Differences of English and Chines

7、e Taboos.83.1 Differences of Privacy.83.2 Differences of Religion.93.3 Differences of Number.103.4 Differences of Color.113.5 Differences of Social Taboos.113.6 Differences of Public Taboos.133.7 Differences of Gifts Taboos.14Conclusion.16Bibliography.17IntroductionTaboo is a subject that people avo

8、id because they think it is offensive or embarrassing or a social custom which means a particular activity or subject must be avoided. Taboo is the reflection of societys cultural background, social belief and value concepts. Generally speaking, taboo is composed of non-language taboo and language t

9、aboo. The taboos studied in this paper include not only the taboo in language but also the things that are regarded as taboo.Taboo is also spelled as tabu, Tongan tabu, or Maori tapu. The term taboo is of Polynesian origin and was first noted by Captain James Cook during his visit to Tonga in 1771.

10、He introduced it into the English language, after which it achieved widespread currency. Although taboos are often associated with the Polynesian cultures of the South Pacific, they have proved to be present in virtually all societies past and present. Taboo is regarded as one of the greatest obstac

11、les in intercultural communication. Misusing taboo will lead to serious consequences such as cultural conflicts. Domestic and foreign experts have done extensive research on taboos. For example, Sigmund Freud, Austrian doctor, psychologist, philosopher, and founder of psychoanalysis, wrote the famou

12、s book Totem and Taboo, in which he analyzed the origin of taboos and their manifestations. English writer James McDonald compiled Dictionary of Obscenity & Taboo, introducing taboo words from linguistics, folklore and literature. The book Chinese Folk Taboos written by Chinese writer Ren Cheng is t

13、he first work to systematically expound the Chinese folk taboos. However, the comparative study of English and Chinese taboos is relatively small.Taboo is a kind of sociolinguistic phenomenon, which is closely related to its culture background. With the increasing inter-cultural communication, it is

14、 necessary for people to pay more attention to the taboos in different cultures. Language reflects culture and is the carrier of culture. Culture is the combination of belief, habits, living patterns and behavior, which is generally owned by the people who occupy a specific geographical area. Differ

15、ent country has its culture deeply rooted in its language, and in turn, the use and development of language have been greatly affected by the culture. Learning a foreign language is to learn not only the vocabulary and grammar, but also know about a kind of culture. Culture contains an extremely wid

16、e range of elements, such as history, social customs and literature, etc. Knowing about these is the necessary conditions and methods to learn a language and communicate. In this paper, through the comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between English and Chinese taboos, people ca

17、n get a deep understanding of the different cultural connotation and value concepts of the East and West. Moreover, this paper is helpful for people to more accurately understand and use English and make a more successful cross-culture communication. Chapter I Evolution of Linguistic Taboos1.1 Primi

18、tive Superstitious Stages About the origin of taboo, there are two viewpoints now. One viewpoint is that the word taboo was borrowed from Tongan, a Polynesian language, in which it refers to acts that are forbidden or to be avoided. When an act is taboo, reference to this act may also become taboo.

19、That is, first you are forbidden to do something, then you are forbidden to talk about it. The other viewpoint is that the term Taboo is originated from native language in the middle Pacific Islands. Most scholars preferred the first viewpoint. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language defines the word

20、 “taboo” as follows: “taboo has been borrowed from Tongan, where it means holy or untouchable.”Taboo phenomena are not unique in Tonga. Instead, it has long existed in all cultures and language throughout the world. In the primitive stages of human society, with the backwardness of social civilizati

21、on and the low productivity, it was hard for people to conquer the natural disasters and diseases, so people thought that the natural disasters and diseases were all god s punishment for human and they dare not to mention the words relating to god or devil. 1.2Feudal Patriarchal Stage With the devel

22、opment of society, classes emerged and the unfairness appeared. There were more restrictions on peoples conservation and behavior due to the dictatorship of the ruling class. Especially in the slave society, slaves were used as tools that can speak without any freedom of speech. In the ancient China

23、, a series of cruel principles, such as burning books and burying Confucian scholars alive and literary inquisition, had imprisoned peoples minds strictly. Taboos were most highly developed in the Polynesian societies of the South Pacific, but virtually they have been present in all cultures. Theref

24、ore, the word “taboo”, as a special noun for this kind of special phenomenon, was brought to sociology and anthropology. It is interpreted as one way in which a society expressed its disapproval of certain kinds of behavior in which were considered to do harm to its members either for supernatural r

25、easons or for hiring such behavior will violate a moral code. For example, the Zuni, an Indian people in New Mexico, U. S. A., regard frog as their god, therefore, the word “takka”(frogs) is forbidden during the religious feasts, and instead, there is a very long linguistic structure- “several are s

26、itting in a shallow basin where they are in liquid”.(Mao Feng, 2002:109) 1.3 Modern Democratic StageIn modern times, linguistic taboos still play a significant role during the cross-cultural communication. So it is necessary for us to get to know the similarities and differences between the Chinese

27、and English taboos.There is no generally accepted explanation of taboo till now, but there is broad agreement that the taboos current in any society tend to become prohibitions, excluding something from use, approach, or mention because of their sacred and inviolable nature, or bans or inhibitions r

28、esulting from social custom or emotional aversion.There are two aspects of taboo: one is that objects, being respected, cant be used freely; the other is that objects, being despised, cant be touched freely. In a broader sense, taboo exists in all known cultures, referring to certain acts, objects o

29、r relationship of which the society wishes to avoid and the language used to talk about them. 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 wo

30、rds, expressions and topics in social interaction.”(Feng Gang, 2006:77)Chapter II Similarities of English and Chinese Taboos2.1 In language2.1.1 In PronunciationPeople in China and English-speaking countries generally believe that if the words they speak have the meaning of misfortune or disaster, t

31、hey may be caught in trouble or disaster and they also hold that if they replace the words which have the meaning of misfortune or disaster with their homophones which have the meaning of luck and fortune, the misfortune and disaster can be avoided.Many taboos in Chinese language are developed from

32、peoples superstitions. A custom in Shanxi, China is that people are not allowed to plant mulberries in front of their house and people are not allowed to plant willows behind their house. The reason is that 桑(mulberry) shares the same pronunciation with 丧(mourning) and the pronunciation of 柳(willow)

33、 is the same as that of 绺, which implies that there may be a funeral in the family or something of the family may be stolen 6. Chinese gamblers rarely speak the word 书 (book), for 书(book) has the same pronunciation as that of 输(lose). In the aspect of present-giving, Chinese people seldom choose a c

34、lock as a gift for other peoples wedding or birthday, because “clock” means 钟(zhong) in Chinese, which is pronounced the same as the Chinese character 终(end), implying the meaning of death in China. Many fishermen in the provinces of south China always avoid speaking the words such as fan/翻(turn ove

35、r) or chen/沉(sink) and some of them even change their surname 陈(chen) for it is pronounced the same as the Chinese character 沉(sink). Similarly, in English-speaking countries, such a kind of examples can be also found in English language. When English-speaking people speak a word which has the same

36、pronunciation as that of a taboo word, they need to replace the word with another word to express the same meaning. For example, “in the early 18th century, women in English-speaking countries try to avoid speaking the word arse (the fleshy part of the human body that you sit onthe flashy part of th

37、e human body that you sit on), or else women are considered to be inelegant(Cui Xiaojuan, 2008:94). The English words such as “fuck”, “fack” and “feck” have been rarely used in todays daily communication because they are similar to the taboo word “fuck” in pronunciation. Thats the reason why some wo

38、rds which have the same pronunciation as that of the taboo words are already out of use. 2.1.2 In VocabularySwearwords as part of the taboo vocabulary are also called four-letter words in English-speaking countries, for most of swearwords consist of four letters such as piss, shit, crap, fuck and et

39、c. The swearwords are vulgar and offensive. The animals names are often used by English speakers to form the swearwords and it is very improper and impolite to speak the animals names such as “bitch, cow, swine and pig” in most daily communications, in particular the conversations with women. A voca

40、bulary list once was published by the British Parliament to show people the abusive, offensive and unparliamentary expressions, such as “cad, cheeky, liar, prevaricating, fascist and etc. In the general daily conversations, these offensive words are regarded as taboo words and it is impolite to use

41、them.In Chinese vocabulary, the similar expressions such as “小兔崽子”, “羊巴羔子”, “狗娘养的”, “小王八” are used by Chinese people to offend and insult others. However, people try to avoid speaking them in communications with others to show the politeness. Obscene words, as one type of taboo words, refer to the o

42、ffensive sex-related words and expressions. In other words, use of obscene words in communications may result in offence to the social moral principles. In both China and English-speaking countries, people seldom use obscene words in public and formal occasions and the obscene words are not allowed

43、to appear in the literary language. The American Sexual Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s made American people more open toward sex, but the sex-related words are still rarely adopted by people in written language. In China, people take a very serious attitude towards sex. “作风问题”or”不正当关系” are often

44、used by Chinese people to refer to the immoral sexual relationship of other people. In addition, pregnancy is a normal physiological phenomenon but because it is linked with sex, people feel a little embarrassed to directly use it in daily communication. Therefore, English speakers may say “she is e

45、xpecting a baby” or “she is in a family way” when they want to express that some one is pregnant. Chinese people may speak “有喜了”, “行动不便了” to express a womans pregnancy. 2.2 In life2.2.1About DeathThere are two aspects about the death taboo. The first aspect is humans fear of death, especially the fe

46、ar and rejection of the body. In another word, it can be seen as the contact taboo. Bataille, the successor of Nietzsche and Hegel, addresses his idea that people sense a rough power of the body which can kill the dead and spread outside. Bataille thinks that people beginning to dig grave and bury the body is out of the contact taboo. The other aspec