By Nature, Almost Alike; By Practice, Quite Different

There have been a lot of ancient and present studies on taboo and euphemism,home and abroad. But the studies of Language will never be possibly exhausted. It isthe same situation with taboo, which has a history as long as language itself andwhich reflects the most attractive and mysterious aspect of language by its connectionwith the magic. Euphemisms are created to replace taboos. Every nation has its owncriterion of what is beautiful. Things considered beauty in one nation might not turnout to be so or even turn out to be ugliness in other nations. Most of taboos just fallinto this category of things. So it is of great necessity, for the sake of inter-culturalcommunication, to have a comparative study of Chinese taboos and euphemisms. Theformer studies put an emphasis on the creation and making mechanism of taboos andeuphemisms from the point view of anthropology and cognitive linguistics, and on thedescription of the linguistic facts, but lack analysis;on the one-way study of Chinesetaboos and euphemisms or the English taboos and euphemisms, but lack comparativestudies;and on many single linguistic facts, but lack the studies of the general featuresof the differences.So this thesis is not intended to offer pure knowledge of what to say or how tosay things but it is intended more to have a survey of the differences in Chinese andBritish taboos and euphemisms and the cultural rootstocks of these differencesthrough applying the theories of the relationship between language and culture, withWilhelm von Humboldt's theory as the core of our discussion. On the basis of the datacollected by the former studies at home and abroad, a descriptive and qualitativemethod is adopted and British and Chinese taboos and euphemisms are classified intofive groups, among which four groups are chosen for main discussion according to thedemand of intercultural communication.By our study, we are able to draw the following conclusions. First, although thespecial linguistic phenomena of Chinese and British taboos and euphemisms share aquite similar origin and they even share some similarities in some aspects, in moreaspects, the differences are dominant. Chinese taboos and euphemisms emphasizetaboos. They tend to be more of a negative use of language. They are not tinged withheavy religious colors but they take on much more hue of humanism. Cultivating theindividual's moral character is valued in Chinese taboos and euphemisms, which areaimed to reach a harmonious state of social relationships. British taboos andeuphemisms emphasize euphemisms. They tend to be more of a positive use oflanguage and they are heavily tinged with the religious belief of sin. They reflect thepursuit for pure soul in religion and the pursuit for elegant language of the British.The British try to extend the individual's influence and to remold the world by meansof language. These differences between Chinese and British taboos and euphemismsare the result of different cultural traditions in China and Britain.We find by our study that the essential differences of Chinese and Britishtraditional cultures lie in two different cultural concepts: the harmony between manand nature in contrast with the distinguishing of man from nature, which foresee thebasic differences in Chinese and British traditional cultures. Harmony is the highestvalues of Chinese traditional culture. This harmony, together with the worldview thatconsiders the whole universe as a harmonious one and with the thinking pattern thatputs high values on harmony, has profound influences on Chinese traditional values,on personal beliefs about life and on religious beliefs of the Chinese, and theseinfluences are reflected in Chinese taboos and euphemisms. The distinguishing ofman from nature starts the traditional of the Western culture. The connotations of thedistinguishing are the distinguishing of man from nature, of body from soul, and ofindividual from society. This distinguishing has great influences on British traditionalvalues, on its personal beliefs about life and on religious beliefs of the British andthese influences are in due course reflected in British taboos and euphemisms.Finally, by a comparative study of different linguistic behaviors in Chinese andtraditional taboos and euphemisms, we are able to have a deeper understanding of thenational culture and a foreign culture and contribute to inter-cultural communication:taboos and euphemisms are complex. Without a comparatively systematic study ofcultures, we are easy to follow the rules blindly. Different roles of language indifferent society may lead to conflicts in inter-cultural communication. Based on theabove discussions, we hope to make some suggestions for inter-culturalcommunication for reference. Language teaching should connect itself with culturalteaching. Through language comparison we could have a comparative study ofdifferent cultures and have a better and deeper understanding of different cultures.