A Comparison of Taboos between Chinese Culture and Western Culture

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【Abstract】Taboo is a common phenomenon in Chinese and Western Culture. The different cultural backgrounds lead to the differences of taboos. This paper focuses on the differences of taboos from several aspects, such as name title, religion, numbers, privacy topics, etc. According to the analyses, we’ll decrease and avoid the cultural shock in intercultural communication. If we know something about taboos in other cultures, we’ll succeed in communicating with other people. Otherwise we’ll fail to communicate.

【Key words】Taboo; social culture; culture difference

Ⅰ.Introduction

Taboo is an important factor that leads to difficulties in communication. In fact, taboo is a common phenomenon in both western and eastern cultures. If we know something about taboos in other cultures, we’ll succeed in communicating with other people. Otherwise we’ll fail to communicate.

Ⅱ.The Origins of Taboo

In ancient times the primitive people do not have much knowledge about natural phenomena and the power of the nature. They do not know why this happened frequently so they fear about it. Thus taboo came into being. And people believe that language and the things represented by language can put their will into effect. Thus people always express the happy things, and avoid speaking the things that they do not wish to happen. Taboo exists among the mankind's various languages. It reflects an usage of the customs, habits and the cultural characteristics of race in languages. We can see that as a social linguistic phenomenon, taboo actually has extremely close of contact.

Ⅲ.comparison of taboos between chinese and Western culture

Language is a kind of social activity.The English-to-Chinese language has dissimilarity in taboo because of the dissimilarity of cultural backgrounds. For majority of British and American people, it is not appropriate to ask one person's age, income, marriage, religion, faith, etc.

1.The Religion

Religion holds a prominent position in the westerners’ lives, for fear of offending God or Satan, many words concerning religion are called taboo words and the expressions will usually be used of the words connected with religion directly, such as the names of various gods and spirits. While in China, people usually use some eulogy to talk about deities admired by them such as great sage, Supreme Being and so on. And they do not mention evils.

2.The Numbers

The number “4” and the word “death” sound almost the same. People do not like the number “4” because of the action “die”. In western countries, people regard “13” as taboo. They never live No, 13 Room in the hotel, or not have the No.13 because of the religious belief. In most big hotels, there are not 13th stories or No.13 Room.

3.Taboos about Privacy

We often ask questions such as “Are you married or single?” “Where are you going?” “What does your wife/husband do?” In this way we express our good wills to care for our friends. Generally speaking, we never feel embarrassed about these conversations, but when we ask the same to the foreigners, they will think we may poke our nose their privacy.

Ⅳ.Conclusion

This paper has a brief introduction about taboo. From the above, we can see that it plays an important role in intercultural communication. Therefore it is necessary for us to know the correct taboo so that we can avoid violating the different cultures and achieve the best communicative effect.

References:

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[2]Deng Yanchang, Liu Runqing. Language and Culture [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research，1989

[3]Hudson R. H. Sociolinguistics [M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press，1990

[4]Thomas Pyles, The Origins and development of the English Language [M]. London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc，1977