Abstract

With rapid development of globalization, exchanges between cultures have been increasingly intensified. Such frequent interactions have enhanced better understandings and promoted the economic growth, but also caused new problems, which requires people to identify both differences and similarities between cultures, and find related communication strategies.

As one of the carriers of culture, language exists in different countries and areas all over the world, so without the cultural background, it is difficult to really understand a language. As a special part of the language, taboo is considered offensive, shocking or indecent by certain people. It has played an important role in both language learning and daily communications. This thesis takes cross-cultural communication principles as the guidance, according to comparative analysis of Chinese and English taboo topics, and summarizes four communication strategies to cope with taboos. It first gives a brief introduction of the background of cross-cultural communication, and then it discusses the origin, definition, characteristics of taboos, and a comparison of Chinese and English taboos. After that, based on different cultures and communicative habits, by analyzing related communication principles, it summarizes four communication strategies to manage taboos, namely, open attitude, sufficient knowledge, proper use of euphemisms, politeness principle and empathy strategy.

This thesis would be helpful for people to understand taboos better, to behave decently in cross-cultural communication, and to reduce unnecessary misunderstandings and conflicts as many as possible.

Key words: taboos, cultural differences, cross-cultural communication, communication strategies 

摘        要

随着全球化的迅速发展，文化交流日益加强。不同国家、文化之间的频繁交流，促进了文化沟通与经济发展的同时，也形成了许多新问题。这就要求我们深入了解文化之间的异同，发现问题并找出相应的解决策略。
语言作为文化的载体，以不同的面貌出现在世界上不同的民族、国家和地区中， 因此没有文化背景是很难真正理解语言的。作为一种特殊的语言，禁忌语无论是在语言学习还是在现实交际中，都显得非常重要。本文以跨文化交际理论为指导，通过对英汉禁忌语文化根源的比较分析，探讨跨文化背景下应用禁忌语的交际策略。首先文章阐述了跨文化交际的时代背景，其次探讨了英汉禁忌语的产生、特征和禁忌话题比较，最后总结出来跨文化交际中禁忌语应对的相关策略，如开放的态度和充足的知识，委婉语的正确使用，礼貌原则的应运等。
本文将为的探索将有助于我们加深对禁忌语的理解，并在跨文化交际中更加得体自如地使用所学的语言，尽量减少不必要的误解和文化冲突。


关键词：禁忌语，文化差异，跨文化交际，交际策略