A Cross-cultural Study Of English And Chinese Euphemisms

Euphemisms are mild, agreeable, or roundabout words used in place of coarse, painful, or offensive ones. The term comes from the Greek eu, meaning "well" or "sounding good," and pheme, "speech." No matter in Chinese or English euphemisms do exist. To a certain extent euphemism is a mirror of social psychology. Human beings are human beings. Almost all cultures seem to have certain notions or things that people try to avoid mentioning directly. Both Chinese and English euphemisms cover such topics as physiological phenomena (death, old age, disease and secretions etc), occupation, poverty, physical shortcomings and politics etc. They share certain features in common.But on the other hand, language mirrors culture. Culture is conveyed by language system. Linguistics expressions are often culture-loaded and carry cultural information. It is the symbolic representation of a people and it comprises their historical and cultural background as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. Failure to receive such information in cross-cultural communication will lead to misunderstanding or even worse. So this thesis aims to make a cross-cultural study on Chinese and English euphemisms and tries to conclude that out of the same motivation euphemism is a common language phenomenon. They both cover several common categories of euphemistic terms and share some common strategies (such as understatement and vagueness) and the metabolic feature. But on the other hand, euphemisms also reflect different cultures.