A Contrastive Study of Verbal Taboo in Chinese Culture and English Culture中英文化中的语言禁忌对比研究开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义

With the intensively international communication, English, as the most widely-used language across the world, has become a significant task in improving language competence in China. Many Chinese people are able to speak English fluently, but some misunderstandings will occur in communication because people do not know taboos in other countries. People have found that mastering taboos in Chinese and English is the key to break the communication bottleneck. Hence, further understanding of common verbal taboos and exploring causes of verbal taboos in Chinese and English are a good way to help us to reduce communication barriers and realize successful cross-cultural communication.

2. 研究内容和预期目标

The paper intends to give a contrastive study of common verbal taboos in Chinese and English and then analyze social and cultural causes of verbal taboos. This paper mainly consists of four parts: introduction, literature review, verbal taboos and causes, conclusion. Firstly, the introduction is concerned with the purpose of this paper, the significance of the chosen topic and the origin and evolvement of taboos. Secondly, the literature review demonstrates studies on Chinese and English verbal taboos and points out shortcomings of existing studies. Thirdly, the verbal taboos in Chinese and English and causes are the main part of this paper. It is made of three parts, concerning the similarities in Chinese and English verbal taboos, the differences between Chinese and English verbal taboos and causes of Chinese and English verbal taboos. At last, conclusion summarizes this thesis. The practical significance of this thesis is to further understand verbal taboos in Chinese and English and their causes, and therefore help people avoid misunderstandings in international communication.

3. 国内外研究现状

There have been many researches on Chinese and English verbal taboos made both by Chinese and foreign scholars. The history of western scholars#8217; studies about verbal taboo can be traced back to a long time ago.The word #8220;taboo#8221; is thought to be originally an idiom of Tongan Island people. It refers to #8220;sacred#8221; or #8220;untouchable#8221; people, things or behavior. When something or behavior is considered to be a taboo, the related language becomes verbal taboo. The early studies abroad mainly combines with anthropology, sociology and ethnology. The influential works #8220;The Golden Bough#8221;, #8220;Totem and Taboo#8221; and #8220;Taboo,Truth and Religion#8221; focus variously, giving a great attention to verbal taboo. With the emergency and development of social linguistics, the phenomenon of verbal taboo have achieved more concern from social linguists and scholars since 1980s. In 1983，linguistic Leech published Principles of Pragmatics. He proposed politeness principle to answer the question why people prefer to using indirect way to express opinions, providing other linguists with good research materials. In 1987, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language written by Crystal, David concluded verbal taboos in various aspects. Dr.Thomas Bowlder defines 'taboo ' as: those expressions are omitted which can not with propriety be read aloud in the family. The proprieties of taboo are implictness, objectivity, popularity, national conciousness and change. The American linguist Boas considered that language is the key for national culture and it is essential to know every aspects of the culture.The study of verbal taboos in china is later than that in the west due to the ingrained feudal ideology. 《语言与社会生活》published by San Lian bookstore in 1980 first involves the word #8220;taboo#8221; and 《社会语言学》published in 1983 specifically discusses the phenomenon of verbal taboo. Chinese scholars express increasing interests in the study of verbal taboo since 1980s. 《语言与文化--英汉语言文化对比》 in 1989 discusses differences between Chinese and English verbal taboos from the angle of language and culture. 《人类语言学论题研究》published in 2000 discusses the origination of Chinese and English verbal taboos and euphemism. The studies《禁忌语的多重因素分析》written by 周秀敏 in 2009 analyzed the varity of factors that caused taboos such as mental factors, cultural factors and courtesy. In 2010, 《汉英语言禁忌差异及其研究意义》 written by 张义introduced many types of verbal taboos and analyzed its meaning of research. He concluded taboos on name, color and number, etc. He also stated the relation between taboo researches and intercultural communication, foreign language teaching. 《英汉语言禁忌的深层文化映现》written by 葛校琴 analyzed cultural influences reflected by different verbal taboos, for example, religion and belief in western countries as well as ethic relations in China, which gave others a relatively comprehensive example. But on the whole, these studies have limitations that scattered knowledge leads to inconvenience to readers. This paper aims to further improve and deepen the thesis on the basis of existing studies, so as to make up for the shortage of first hand information.

4. 计划与进度安排

1.Introduction 2.Literature review 3.Contrastive study of verbal taboos in Chinese and English 3.1.The similarities in Chinese and English verbal taboos 3.1.1.Verbal taboos on death 3.1.2.Verbal taboos on illness 3.1.3.Verbal taboos on profanity 3.1.4.Verbal taboos on obscenity 3.1.5.Verbal taboos on race and gender 3.2.The differences between Chinese and English verbal taboos 3.2.1.Verbal taboos on old 3.2.2.Verbal taboos on appellation 3.2.3.Verbal taboos on weight 3.2.4.Verbal taboos on color 3.2.5.Verbal taboos on number 4.Causes 4.1.Religion 4.2.Social institution and convention 4.3.Value 4.4.Psychological association 4.5.Courtesy 4.6.Homophone 5.Conclusion

5. 参考文献

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