[Abstract] Language, as the carrier of culture, is created d(4)
2013-08-19 01:05
导读：In America, the Sexual Revolution in 1960s and 70s made people more open toward sex, but now words such as making love and having sex still seldom appear directly in writing, let alone in conversation
In America, the Sexual Revolution in 1960s and 70s made people more open toward sex, but now words such as “making love” and “having sex” still seldom appear directly in writing, let alone in conversation. Western people are serious towards sex terms to a certain degree, so to speak.
The Chinese people also treat terms on sex seriously. Chinese people always use the expression of “ 作风问题”or“不正当关系”to show the immoral relationship between a man and a woman.
As we all know, pregnancy is a normal physiological phenomenon, but in daily life, people won’t say it directly, as it is related to sex. If someone is pregnant, English people will say, “she is expecting a baby” or “she is in a family way”. Similar euphemisms can be found in Chinese “有喜了”, “行动不便了”.
3.2.2 In profanities
Profanities refer to religious words used in a way that shows a lack of respect for God or holy things. Religion is a fertile field of this type of taboo terms. A typical example is that Christian cannot refer to God or God’s name. “The Ten Commandments forbid people to ‘take the name of the Lord your God in vain’. So it is considered very rude to say ‘goddame’ or ‘goddamned’”. [10] The words such as “God,” “Jesus,” “damn” and “hell” etc, are considered holly and only properly used in religion. If they appear in daily communication, they will make people unpleasant and disgusted. So people always try to avoid using these taboo words directly. They would like to use their euphemisms “Gosh,” “Jeepers creepers,” “dash” and “heck”. Some people also avoid referring to the devil, which is considered disrespectful. So they use “the deuce”, “the dickens”, “ old Nick” to substitute “ the devil”.
（转载自科教范文网http://fw.nseac.com） We can find similar examples in Chinese. In religion, people use some complimentary address to refer to awesome gods, e.g. “大帝”, “大圣”, “佛陀 (Buddha)”. Another example is that, tiger is regarded as the divine animal near the Changbai Mountain situated in the Northeast of our country. Therefore, there was the custom of “tiger is the god” in ancient times. People avoided calling the “tiger” directly and gave the tiger another name, “山君” or “山佛爷”.
3.2.3 In vulgarities
Both in English and Chinese the vulgar words are usually rude and offensive and bring about unpleasantness, anger or conflicts.
Swearwords in English are often called four-letter words, because most of them are short, and many are made up of four letters, e.g.: piss, shit, crap, fuck. “These so-called four letter words are considered vulgar.” [11]
Swear words formed by employing some of the animals’ names are vulgarities too.
They are very improper expressions in most conversations, especially when there are male and female at the same time, such as “bitch”, “cow”, “swine”, “pig” etc. “The British Parliament has once published a word list. The words on the list are abusive and were unparliamentary expressions, such as ‘cad’, ‘cheeky’, ‘liar’, ‘prevaricating’, ‘fascist’ etc.”[12] In general situation, even in daily communications, these vulgar words are considered taboo words.
In Chinese, there are also many similar sayings, such as “小兔崽子”, “羊巴羔子”, “狗娘养的”, “小王八” etc. These words are used to insult others. People always try to avoid using them in a normal and polite communication.
The evolution of linguistic taboo indicates that taboos involve in almost every field of life. Therefore the above three types of taboo words don’t present a complete list of taboo terms and the author has found other types of taboo words in other references.
（科教范文网 lw.AsEac.com编辑整理）
3.2.4 In terms concerning disease, death and physical disability
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.
