Abstract

The subject of linguistic taboo always takes a stable seat in the area of the research about social linguistics. Firstly, this paper discusses the significance of the English linguistic taboos in English language from the scope of social linguistics. Secondly, it introduces the present researches on English linguistic taboos by the scholars home and abroad. Thirdly, under the circumstance of social linguistics, this paper gives a great number of examples to illustrate the existence of linguistic taboos in English language such as taboos regarding death, sex, race, religion, privacy, numbers, vulgarity, appellation and so on. From the scope of social linguistics, this paper focuses on the causes for English linguistic taboos such as cultural factors, word fetishism, homophonic factors, psychological factors, moral factors, and etc. Through those phenomena and factors, we can analyze the characteristics of English linguistic taboos, digest the importance of the avoidance from the linguistic taboos, and offer the appropriate suggestions for cross-cultural communication, in order to prevent those unnecessary problems which could harm the cross-cultural communication. 

Key words: taboos; cultural differences; cross-cultural communication

Contents

摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Research background-1

1.2 Significance of the study-1

1.3 Studies home and abroad-2

1.4 Data collection-3

2. Language and society-3

3. Scopes of linguistic taboos in English-4

3.1 Taboos regarding death-4

3.2 Taboos regarding race-4

3.3 taboos regarding religion-5

3.4 Taboos regarding privacy-5

3.5Taboos regarding numbers-6

3.6 Taboos regarding sex and excretion-7

3.7 Taboos regarding vulgarity-7

3.8 Taboos regarding appellation-8

4. Cause of taboos-8

4.1 Cultural factors-8

4.1.1 Social convention-9

4.1.2 Traditional morality-10

4.1.3 Religion belief-10

4.2 Word fetishism-11

4.3 Homophonic factors-12

4.4 Psychological factors-12

4.4.1 Anxiety and terror-13

4.4.2 Shyness and timidness-13

4.4.3 Community stereotypes-14

4.5 Ethic factors-14

5. Characteristics of taboos-15

5.1 Universality-15

5.2 National character-16

5.3 Epochal character-17

6. Suggestions for cross-cultural communications-18

7. Conclusion-18

Reference-20

Acknowledgments-21