浅谈从委婉语角度看中美文化差异.doc

On Chinese and American Cultural Differences Viewed from Euphemism 浅谈从委婉语角度看中美文化差异 委婉语是语言的重要组成部分。同时，它也是一种非常重要的修辞手法。委婉语这一词源于希腊语，它运用含蓄，温和，文雅，婉转等语言代替生硬，率直，粗俗，恐惧，带刺激性的语言，所以它能够回避或掩饰一些忌讳的词或句子，避免产生使人尴尬，难堪的局面 Abstract Euphemism is one kind of figures of speech, and it refers to the substitution of mild or vague or roundabout expression for harsh or direct one. With the development of the human society, euphemism plays a more and more important role in our daily life. Euphemism is a common language strategy in communication. This paper is based on the contrastive analysis and designed to study the definition, pragmatic function, history of euphemism and its usage in common life. This paper focuses on the different attitudes towards birth, death, age, aesthetic sense and so on between Chinese and American people, and the analysis of the social foundation of these differences, in order to represent the influence of different ideology background, that is, Christianity in America and Confucianism in China. Through this paper, the reader could understand the cultural differences better and achieve smooth cross-cultural communication. 【 Key Words 】 euphemisms; cultural differences; comparison ? 1. Introduction ………………………………………………………………………….…………………..4 2. A brief introduction of euphemism ………………………………………………………………….…..5 2.1 The definition of euphemism…………………………………………………………………….…..5 2.2 A brief history of English and Chinese euphemism………………………………….………….…..5 2.2.1 A brief history of English euphemism…………………………………………………...….…..5 2.2.2 A brief history of Chinese euphemism…………………………………………………..….…..6 3. The cultural differences between China and America viewed from euphemism…………………....…..6 3.1 Birth……………….…………………………………………………………………………..……..6 3.2 Death……………….……………………………………………………………………….………..7 3.3 Age………………….………………………………………………………………………………..9 3.4 Name ……………….…………………………………………………………………..…………..11 3.5 Sexual love……………….……………………………………………………………..…………..13 3.6 Marriage and Divorce………………………………………………………