英汉死亡委婉语的使用异同及其反映的审美心态_英语论文

A Comparison of Death-related Euphemisms in Chinese and English and Different Aesthetics Reflected 

摘要

语言学与美学看似是两个毫无关联的学科，却有着密切的关系。美学语言学便是这两个学科的结合体。简单概括，美学语言学把言语活动和言语行为作为交际活动以及审美对象，并以此研究它们的特点和规律，研究语言的审美属性。它揭示了言语行为和言语活动所展现出的美学价值，以及语言在被创造时所体现的人类的审美选择。美学语言学还关心语言变异，承认了人对语言变异的审美干涉，并且阐述了民族审美观念与语言二者高度的融合关系等。本文便从美学语言学的角度研究分析英汉死亡委婉语。首先通过追溯它们的文化起源，分析它们的语言特点，再从这些语言特点找寻其反映出的审美观念。并且运用语料库，观察英汉死亡委婉语在不同时代的使用频率变化，从而发现其反映的审美观念的变化。

本文语料来自英语委婉语词典以及汉语委婉语词典，分别有318和426条死亡委婉语表达，并且利用北大中国语言学研究中心语料库,美国当代英语语料库,以及美国近当代英语语料库作为统计工具进行分析。

通过总结英汉死亡委婉语的异同，作者发现其反映出的审美观念，与美学语言学中所提出的许多美学规律和求美策略相一致。并且借助语料库，发现了英汉死亡委婉语的使用频率变化，略谈了其反映的审美观念变化。

关键词：美学语言学；死亡委婉语；审美观念

Abstract

Aesthetic linguistics is a rather new discipline. It studies the aesthetic features of language. Specifically, language, speech events, and speech acts are treated as aesthetic objects, and their aesthetic laws are discovered in this discipline.

This paper explores death-related euphemisms from the angle of aesthetic linguistics. Euphemism, which means to bring up taboo issues in an indirect and pleasant way, exists in both Chinese and English, and possibly most other languages. As for the taboo issue of death, there are also a lot of euphemisms to refer to it. On one hand, these death-related euphemisms in Chinese and English are similar to some extent in the form of language and in contents, but on the other hand, they are different from each other in many other specific details. Viewed from the perspective of aesthetic linguistics, these death euphemisms also reflect similarities and differences of aesthetics. 

With the help of online corpora, this paper also discovers the changes in use frequency of Chinese and English death euphemisms. Euphemisms expressing the meaning of death are chosen from the euphemism dictionaries in Chinese and English. Center for Chinese Linguistics PKU Corpus (CCLC), Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) are used to search for the use frequency. It’s concluded that some death euphemisms are of higher use frequency today, and some are commonly used in the past and the present. The aesthetics reflected are also explored.

Keywords：aesthetic linguistics；death euphemisms；aesthetics

Contents

Acknowledgements i

English Abstract ii

Chinese Abstract iii

Table of Contents iv

List of Tables vi

Chapter One Introduction 1

Chapter Two Literature Review 3

Chapter Three Similarities and Differences between Chinese and English Death Euphemisms 6

3.1 Similarities between Chinese and English Death Euphemisms 6

3.1.1 From the Perspective of Rhetorical Device 6

3.1.2 From the Perspective of Values in Death Euphemisms 7

3.2 Differences between Chinese and English Death Euphemisms 8

3.2.1 From the Perspective of Cultural Origins 8

3.2.2 From the Perspective of Customs 9

3.2.3 From the Perspective of Religions 10

3.2.4 From the Perspective of Values 11

Chapter Four Aesthetics Reflected in Similarities and Differences of Death Euphemisms 13

4.1 Aesthetics on Language Form Reflected in Death Euphemisms 13

4.1.1 Aesthetics Reflected in the Style of Language 13

4.1.2 Aesthetics Reflected in Structure Features of Death Euphemisms 14

4.1.3 Aesthetics Reflected in Rhetorical Device of Death Euphemisms 16

4.2 Aesthetics on Language Contents Reflected in Death Euphemisms 17

4.2.1 Aesthetics Reflected in Meanings of Death Euphemisms 17

4.2.2 Aesthetics Reflected in the Humor of Death Euphemisms 18

4.2.3 Aesthetics Reflected in Images in Death Euphemisms 18

Chapter Five Change in Use Frequency of Death Euphemisms and the Aesthetic Change Reflected 20

5.1 Death Euphemisms of Higher Use Frequency in Today’s Context and the Aesthetics Reflected 20

5.2 Consistently Used Death Euphemisms and the Aesthetics Reflected 23

5.3 Forecast on the Future Development of Death Euphemisms 24

Chapter Six Conclusion 26

References 27

Appendix 29