A Comparative Study Of Taboo Words In Chinese And Korean

China and Korea have a long cultural communication history. So there are many things in common about culture in these two countries. However, because of different geographical position and history, culture differences can also be easily found between China and Korea. As widely used expressions, taboo words are playing an important role in communication between two countries. A competent understanding of taboo words can promote communication and a shortage of knowledge of taboo words may bring misunderstanding and block the communication.China and Korea are contained in the cultural circle of Chinese characters, and we are both profoundly influenced by Confucianism culture in history. Therefore, we can find some obvious similarities in Chinese and Korean taboo words. Meanwhile, we can also find some dissimilarities as a consequence of the development of modern culture in two countries. Futhermore, the structural reform in the cultural field, which is brought by the creation of Korean characters, is a significant reason.This paper mainly introduces the taboo words in China and Korea about interpersonal title, disaster, obscene, discrimination and vocation. Based on these words, we compare Chinese taboo words and Korean taboo words in the aspect of the meaning and the method of decoding. Through the comparison above, we summarize the reasons which lead to these similarities and dissimilarities.