中国语言禁忌.docx

中国语言禁忌


Linguistic Taboo Either in 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