Comparative Study Of Chinese And Vietnamese Linguistic Taboo

Language is a carrier of culture and is the most important communication tool for humanbeings. Taboo languages, being one of the important aspects of language and culture, are widelypresented in all aspects of our daily lives. Taboos are a special product of a language’s culturalpsychology, reflecting the worldview and values of a nation.Taboo languages result from the human sense of fear. In communication, for some specialreasons people deliberately avoid the use of certain words or sentences by choosing other words orsentences instead. Some of them are perceived as dangerous omen, some are consideredembarrassing, hence people do not want to mention them.Taboo phenomenon exists in both Chinese and Vietnamese. Through comparative analysis ofChinese and Vietnamese taboo languages, this paper identifies the similarities and differencesbetween them as well as the causes, aimed at promoting the cross-cultural exchange between thetwo nations and helping to fully understand the nature of language as a cultural carrier, which hasimportant significance.Due to differences in the culture of nations, Chinese and Vietnamese taboo languages are notthe same. This paper attempts to describe and discover the similarities and differences betweenChinese and Vietnamese taboo languages through title taboo, words taboo and taboo topics bycomparison. Furthermore, the paper also studies the alternative ways of expression for Chineseand Vietnamese taboo languages from writings, vocabulary and pronunciation aspects.Nevertheless, by identifying the reason of similarities and differences between Chinese andVietnamese taboos, this paper reveals the characteristics of Chinese and Vietnamese culturerespectively.The paper makes the final conclusion: There are similarities and differences between Chineseand Vietnamese taboos; Chinese taboos offer more variations than Vietnamese; The similaritiesand differences between Chinese and Vietnamese taboo languages result from historical andcultural roots of the two nations.