中国语言禁忌

Linguistic Taboo Either in English or in Chinese culture, disease, death, and physical disability may horrify people. So people don’t like to mention these directly in conversation. Therefore, they are considered taboos. In both English and Chinese, death is viewed as “departing”. In English, we can find many euphemisms for death, such as “go”, “depart”, “depart from this world”, “go to a better world”, “go the ways of all flesh”, “pass away” etc. In Chinese, we also can find similar euphemisms: “去了”, “离开了我们”, “辞世”, “去见马克思了”, “归西”,“升天”, “上路”etc. In both English and Chinese, death is compared to “sleeping”, “sleep”in English correspond to “正寝”，“长眠”，or“永眠”in Chinese. Words denoting terrible disease are also sources of horror. In Englis h, people don’t like to talk about terrible disease or disease related to sexual organs directly. For instance, they use “V.D” instead of “veneral disease”; use “big C”, “long disease”, or ”terminal illness” to replace “cancer”. Abbreviations are often used to alleviate the shocking effect. For instance, SARS is used to substitute the terrible name “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndromes”. In Chinese, when we talk to a patient, we may say “你今天不舒服，别上班了”.Here, we use “不舒服”instead of “病”. As a soldier, we may say “挂彩了”instead of “伤”. Mental illnesses are thought not to be mentioned directly. For example, when referring to a mental illness, we just say “a little eccentric”or “a little confused”. Either in Chinese or Western, people have sympathy for one’s phy sical disability. If someone looks ugly, we will say she/he looks plain/ordinary and we won’t use the word “fat” to describe a man. We only use “heavily set” or “on the heavy side”. If a girl is thin, we won’t use skinny. We just say slender, and when we refer to a crippled, we will say, “physically handicapped”. In Chinese, if one is deaf, we will say “耳朵背”, “耳朵有点不好”, “说话得近点”. In English, it is called “hard of hearing”. In both cultures, people think that certain parts of the body and the excretion of body cannot be mentioned in daily conversations. They are often considered taboos. For example, in English, there are so many euphemisms for lavatory, such as “washroom”, “restroom”, “bathroom”, “comfort station”. If they want to go to lavatory, they will say: “go to the bathroom”, “do their business”, “answer nature’s call”. In Chinese, “厕所”is always avoided in public occasion, one may say :“去一号”or“去方便一下”Discrimination against woman is a universal and unreasonable phenomenon in the society. And its reflection on language is sexist language. Both in English and Chinese, there are traces of sexist language. Unless one is careful enough with his/her speech, one may easily offend others unconsciously. In China, under the control of strict hierarchy feudal society, the females were regarded inferior. They depend on male and were dominated by male. Sothe discrimination and prejudice against women is the long-term accumulation, which is inevitably reflected in Chinese. For example, the sayings “妇人之见”, “头发长见识短”, “男子汉不和妇人一般见识”, “长舌妇”, etc, reflect the pejorative attitude toward women. And there are also many derogatory titles for women, such as “贱人”, “泼妇”, “母老虎”, “母夜叉”, “娘儿们”，“悍妇”etc. In Chinese, there is also racist language. For example, “using “蒙古大夫”for an incompetent doctors; using “小鬼子”for Japanese. “洋鬼子”,“大鼻子”for westerners.”[16] Most of these words are derogatory. It shows off that Chinese is more superior than other racial or ethic groups. Having a good knowledge of the taboo culture。

Language and culture rely on each other and influence each other. Languages are formed and develop under certain cultural background. Linguistic taboo is a kind of social phenomenon. Its existence and development are restricted and influenced by specific cultural background. Some words are prohibited in English; some words are banned in Chinese and somewords are prohibited in both languages. As a result, if one wants to avoid violating taboos, he or she should have a good knowledge of what is or is not a taboo in this culture. For example, in China, the word “old ” means “experience” and “wisdom”. At the sa me time, Chinese people are influenced by the long-term concept of respecting the old and taking care of the young. Chinese people seem to like to address each other as “老（old）”,for example, “老爷爷”, “老奶奶”, “老林”, “老吴”, “老教授”. But English people always connect the "old" with "uselessness" and "death". Therefore, when contacting with English people, the saying of “somebod y is old”should be avoided in order not to arouse unpleasantness. For Example, we cannot call somebody “old Smith”or “old Brown”. Especially for women who are sensitive to age, no matter how old they are, we should not call them “奶奶”or “大娘”,though they are pleasant greetings in China. In English, expressions such as “senior citizens”, “advanced in age”, “golden years” etc. are produced in order to avoid “old”. A smooth cross-cultural communication greatly benefits from the good command of a foreign language’s cultural background knowledge. It is hard to imagine a Chinese who has a poor knowledge of English taboo culture can intercommunicate with the English people smoothly and without offending them, and vice versa.。