A Cross-Cultural Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Euphemisms

The study was undertaken to make a cross-cultural contrastive study of English and Chinese euphemisms. Euphemism is a widespread linguistic and cultural phenomenon. Many scholars both at home and abroad have studied euphemism from different perspectives; yet the previous study was restricted to individual language and limited to the rhetorical or semantic perspective. There have been not many systematical contrastive studies of euphemisms, especially from the cultural perspective.It is assumed that culture can be examined at three levels (高一虹等, 2001:8): the physical culture at the surface level, the conventional or interpersonal culture at the intermediate level, and the psychological culture at the deep level. The present study was made under such a theoretical framework as a tentative attempt to make up for the inadequacies in the previous studies.First, a contrastive study was made between English and Chinese euphemisms in terms of their linguistic features and the underlying principles responsible for the generation and development of euphemisms.Then, a further contrastive study was made between English and Chinese euphemisms, focusing on the interpersonal or conventional culture, and psychological culture or culture value orientations.The major findings are as follows:First, English and Chinese euphemisms are typologically different, but they have much in common in terms of their linguistic features, for instance, they both rely on their own phonetic skills or vague expressions for euphemistic effect. What is more, the underlying principles for the generation and development of euphemisms either in English or in Chinese are the same, that is, the principle of distance, the principle of relation, the principle of pleasantness, the law of exclusion and succession.Second, similarities and differences between English and Chinese cultures are strongly reflected in their respective euphemisms, especially in terms of the interpersonal or conventional culture, such as religions, norms of polite language behaviors. The present study shows that many English and Chinese euphemisms mirror their different religions and that euphemisms in both cultures are often the results of flouting cooperative principles on the basis of the same psychological mechanism, that is, politeness principles.Third, the cultural similarities and differences also strongly manifest themselves in psychological culture, that is, cultural value orientations, such as individualism vs. collectivism, which is illustrated by English and Chinese respective euphemistic expressions about old age, poverty, occupation, etc.The study has strong pedagogical implications: in intercultural communication and in foreign language teaching and learning, we should attach more importance to cultural knowledge so as to sharpen their cultural awareness and avoid pragmatic failures. Language learning is a process of meaning negotiation, involving systematic linguistic knowledge and cultural schematic knowledge. Proper use of focused task-based approach may help learners to achieve their goal in their foreign language learning.In summary, a cross-cultural contrastive study of euphemisms could help Chinese and people of English-speaking countries to know more about each other and achieve more harmonious and effective cross-cultural communication.