A Study Of English And Chinese Euphemism Of Death Related To Religion In Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor

The exploration and study on metaphor has experienced two thousand years. Incontrast to the traditional view of metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson indicate that metaphor isconceptual in nature, which is not only linguistic expression but also the way of humanbeing’s thinking and behaving. There are a wide variety of euphemisms both in Englishand in Chinese, which play an important role of avoiding being vulgar and beautifyingexpressions. Metaphor has the significant functions of highlighting and concealing. Mostof euphemisms are constituted by metaphorical expressions. Euphemism of death ispervasive in our daily lives, which is not only a linguistic phenomenon but a culturalphenomenon.Traditional researchers on euphemism mainly focus on studying from the rhetorical,semantic, pragmatic point of view. The present study is based on the theories of cognitivelinguistics and socio-linguistics. The thesis studies on the euphemism of death related toreligion both in English and in Chinese based on the conceptual metaphor theory putforward by Lakoff and Johnson. The writer attempts to find that different nations sharesome similar cultural elements because human cognition is rooted in the same bodilyexperience，which leads to shared mapping from the same source domain to the sametarget domain, meanwhile there are some differences in the metaphorical concept due tothe different cultures, which results in mapping from different source domain to differenttarget domain.The study in the thesis is conducted by applying inductive reasoning and qualitativeresearch method. The thesis begins with collecting the data from newspaper, magazines,internet and the like, and then conducts inductive reasoning and qualitative analysis.Finally, the thesis expounds similarities and differences of euphemism of death related toreligion both in English and Chinese under the different religious background.Through the research, the main findings of the thesis are as follows: religious beliefsinfluence the way of thinking and behaving; there are differences in using euphemism ofdeath in nations of different religious beliefs. However, due to the fact that humancognition is rooted in the same bodily experience, there are some similarities in using euphemism of death both in English and in Chinese; language is the mirror of culture,language used in different nations reflects different cultures. Through cross-culturalanalysis, the writer attempts to find the similarities and differences of languageexpressions both in English and in Chinese, further explore the cultural universality andspecificity between English and Chinese and understand the essence of language andculture better.The study may be helpful to make people know the relations between metaphor andculture further. In addition, the study may play an important role in the aspect of makingpeople further comprehend the conceptual systems and ways of thinking in differentnations, improving the conceptual fluency and avoiding the misunderstandings andovercoming the barriers in cross-cultural communication.