A Contrastive Study Of English & Chinese Euphemisms

Euphemism is a widespread linguistic phenomenon. Studies of euphemisms have long been of interest among linguistic researchers both at home and abroad. Many scholars agree that euphemism is different from other figures of speech such as metaphor, metonymy, personification and so on in that the former focuses on the purpose while the latter on the approach.Though great achievements have been made in the study of euphemisms, so far most of these studies dealt with individual languages. There is a shortage of contrastive researches of euphemisms between languages. Little is done on contrastive between English and Chinese and still less on the contrastive studies at the grammatical level. To unveil the universal features of euphemism and to better understand euphemism in a particular language, contrastive study is a must.This thesis, which is based of some contrastive theories, is an attempt to analyze the differences between English and Chinese euphemisms and highlight the grammatical influences on their euphemistic forms. It falls into five chapters.Chapter one surveys the studies on euphemisms to show what has been done and what remains to be done in this field. Chapter two contrasts Chinese and English euphemisms in phonetic, writing and lexical systems and suggests how the differences in languages influence euphemisms in them. Chapter three discusses the euphemistic functions of some grammatical structures such as tense, aspect, voice and mood in English and argues that there are not similar euphemistic expressions in Chinese due to the absence of grammatical marks. Chapter four deals with the two basic rules of English and Chinese euphemisms and proposes the possible underlying reasons that guide the development of euphemisms in the two languages. Chapter five unveils the relationship between language, thought and culture. Followed is a conclusion of all the findings and discoveries made in this thesis.