A Contrastive Study Of Euphemisms In English And Chinese

As a linguistic phenomenon, the structures of euphemisms areunique, and develop regularly. Meanwhile, euphemism is also a culturephenomenon, which manifests different cultural orientations and values.With the development of human society, the employment ofeuphemisms is growing in both frequency and intensity. Death is aserious, painful and unavoidable topic in man’s life. Therefore, as asignificant component of euphemisms, the present thesis attempts tomake a contrastive study of death euphemism in English and Chineseby contrastively analyzing them in terms of formal structure, semanticstructure and cultural aspect, which will contribute not only a betterunderstanding of linguistic characteristics of death euphemisms, butalso proper interpretation and application of death euphemisms incommunication.Thus the thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter One is theintroduction of this thesis, which includes: motivation, purpose,methodology and organization of the thesis and literature review ofeuphemisms. Chapter Two focuses on death euphemisms as a linguisticphenomenon by exploring definition, features, formation, principles inthe making, and classifications of death euphemisms. Chapter Three ismainly concerned with the relationship between language and culture,the cultural motivation and functions of death euphemisms. ChapterFour, a keystone in the thesis, explores a contrastive analysis of deatheuphemisms in English and Chinese in terms of three aspects, that is,formal structure, semantic structure and culture. Chapter Five is theconclusion.