A Contrastive Study On Chinese And English Death Euphemisms

Death is a kind of experience that every individual must face and cannot get rid of. Death is also an eternal topic for philosophy and religion. No matter what nationality you are and which language you use, to discuss about death is an unavoidable thing. Chinese and English, as the two of the most important languages all over the world, have a very bright and obvious feature in common as to death euphemisms. Both tend to avoid referring to death directly and turn to death euphemisms, although respective death euphemisms are totally different According to previous studies on death euphemisms, there are more than400death euphemisms in English (Liu,1993) and almost480death euphemisms in Chinese (Zhang,1996). Such a coincidence can prove that the death euphemism is an important linguistic phenomenon and even can account for the fact that the death euphemism exists as a crucial cultural phenomenon. Therefore, more important cultural information must have been hidden in death euphemisms.The research centers on three main questions:firstly, what are the main differences embodied in death euphemisms between Chinese language and English language; secondly, what are the similarities and what reasons cause these similarities or where the similarities lie in; thirdly, what are the main implications of this thesis for English or Chinese learners and intercultural communicators? The theoretical frameworks applied in this thesis are the theory of the relationship between language and culture, and the model of Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s value orientations. The main research methods are contrastive analysis and sum-up. The samples of death euphemisms are mainly from Chinese Euphemism Dictionary edited by Zhang Gonggui and English Euphemism Dictionary written by Liu Chunbao.In conclusion, there are some similarities and differences between Chinese and English death euphemisms. But there are some problems and shortcomings found in the previous definitions of euphemism and death euphemism:1, confusion among langue, rhetoric, and parole;2, some terminologies required to be expatiated in the definition of euphemism;3, under-extension of dimensions of euphemism. The research is based on death euphemisms, but it has dealt with many aspects of the society and culture. Therefore, some valuable recommendations are made for intercultural communicators and language learners. At last, the deficiencies and limitations of the research are presented, which can guide the future study in this aspect...