CulturalDifferencesinChineseandEnglishEuphemismonDeath

毕业论文〔设计)1.IntroductionLanguage is used to avoid saying certain things as well as to express them (RonaldWardhaugh,2000).In every language there seems to be certain unmentionable words.As Ronald Wardhaugh (2000)claims,"Certain things are not said,not because theycannot be,but because 'people do not talk about those things';or,if those things aretalked about,they are talked about in very roundabout ways."Thus there are twolinguistic concepts-taboo in the first place as well as euphemism in the second,soas to avoid mentioning certain matters in the direct way.“Euphemism”can be divided into the“eu”and "phemism”,phemism”means“words of good omen”or“good speech”in the language of Greece(Oxford Dictionaryof Euphemisms,"death euphemism,"int.1995).Euphemism,in Bolinger's(1975)eyes,is a name for something unpleasant producing the same qualms as the unpleasant thingitself,and tends to be avoided.Euphemism as a part of our lives is everywhere."Death"Euphemism is a major part of the Euphemism.People use the euphemism of death tomake the "dead"sounds not so terrible.According to Oxford Dictionary ofEuphemisms ("death euphemism,"int.1995),there are about 400 kinds of wordings ofthe“death”euphemism in English.Death is described as“having passed away'”,"departed"and so on."Death"Euphemism is not only a linguistic phenomenon,butalso reflects cultural differences between the different cultural phenomena.Numerousresearchers have tried their best to give their particular and systematic explanations onthis kind of euphemism.This thesis analyzed the different wordings of death euphemism in English andChinese.By studying from the "death"euphemism which reflects on the cultural2