Abstract:

Taboos, as a common language phenomenon, exist widely in all societies and cultures. Birth, senility, illness and death are four important phases in a person’s life. Owing to their specialties, sometimes people are reluctant to talk of them directly. Therefore, taboos on birth, senility, illness and death are abundant in every language, so are in Chinese and English. Language is the carrier of culture. The differences on Chinese and British culture, lead to the differences on taboos. Based on the previous study, this paper intends to analyze a large number of taboo examples on birth, senility, illness and death in China and English, try to explore summarize the similarities and differences of Chinese and British culture and provide some strategies to avoid taboos so as to promote cross-cultural communication.

Key words: taboos; birth, senility, illness and death; similarities and differences; cross-cultural communication

摘要：

禁忌语是一种非常普遍的语言现象，它存在于任何一个社会和文化之中。生老病死是每个人一生中重要的阶段，由于其特殊性，很多人不愿意直面这些问题，因此在各国语言中存在着大量的生老病死禁忌语。语言是文化的载体；中英两个国家由于文化差异导致在使用禁忌语方面也有差异。本文将在前人研究的基础上，收集大量中英生老病死禁忌语实例，分析中英生老病死禁忌语差异，探究中英文化差异及其根源，并提出了避免禁忌语的策略，从而为实现更完美的中英跨文化交流提供帮助。

关键词：禁忌语；生老病死；异同点；跨文化交际

1. Introduction
  With the development of globalization, cross-cultural communications are ubiquitous. People have more and more chances to talk with others from different regions and countries all over the world.  Owing to the cultural differences, people may run into a variety of problems, conflicts and misunderstandings. Therefore, it is necessary to study the similarities and differences of different languages and cultures to find better ways so as to wipe out the communication barriers in the interactions.