概念隐喻视角下的中英死亡委婉语对比研究 A Comparative Study of Death Euphemisms in English and Chinese from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor开题报告

Death is inescapable sinceit’s the end of every life journey that everyone has to face. Philosophersand religious leaders have pondered upon death from time immemorial. Thoughunpleasant, the topic of death is unavoidable. However, it’s very rare forpeople to utter direct words such as death, no matter where they are from orwhat language they speak. Instead, people devise a way to express this tragicreality, that is euphemism. As two of the most widely spoken languages, Chineseand English have a noteworthy similarity in terms of death euphemisms, aswell as wide disparity

A specific nationalculture ultimately gives birth to a unique language, while a language, inturn, could display cultural features of a particular country. Language andculture may aid or promote one another. As a result, the implicit languagedepiction of death euphemism may naturally reflect the diversity of theirdiverse national culture. Meanwhile, the different rhetorical and semanticfeatures intrinsically show their distinct cultural traits. There aresignificant disparities between English and Chinese death euphemism, mainlydue to the effect of their national culture. Language and culture support oneanother, existing in a dialectical oneness. As a symbolic system and a typeof important communication instrument, language records and transmits culture.Language reflects society so obviously, and extensively that language mayadopt the appellation of the living fossil of culture. Through the classificationof death euphemisms, it is seen that there are considerable variances inreligion, culture, class, etc.

In this paper, theauthor adopts a comparative study of death euphemism between English andChinese based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, in an attempt to present thedeath conceptualization system of people who speak Chinese and people who speakEnglish. Ultimately, this paper tries to explore to which extent the metaphoricalmappings in death euphemism are common to both languages or whether they arelanguage specific and accounts for the use of these death metaphors which aregrounded in our bodily and social experiences. Specifically, this paper hasdealt with the following research questions.

1. How do death euphemismsin the Chinese and English languages differ or be alike?

2. Why do they have thosedifferences and similarities? In other words, what contributes to thesimilarity but non coincidence between meanings contained in Chinese andEnglish death euphemism?

There are essential physiological and psychological underpinnings thatare shared by all people, no matter where they live or where they come from,such as the universality of cognition. When dealing with death, the familiaraesthetic establishes the commons or similarities no matter what languagepeople speak. Upon deeper investigation of Chinese and English deatheuphemisms, numerous patterns or parallels appear, such as identical physicalreactions to allude to death, similar comparisons, similar transformations,similar value systems for human life, and similar words express death .

In terms of applied theory, CMT was first proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) to explain how themind, body, and environment interact and influence each other to make lifemeaningful and effective for an individual. In that study, researchers lookedat a wide range of metaphoric language use and concluded that our simpleconceptual framework is inherently symbolic. To distinguish it from thepreceding tradition of linguistic metaphor, conceptual metaphors are the termused to describe these analogies. Using metaphors is a technique to thinkabout a different form of experience connected to another kind of experience,such as a journey or relaxation.

The samples of death euphemisms gathered arepretty basic, and certain cases should be studied further. The examples ofdeath euphemisms are primarily from the Chinese Euphemism Dictionary editedby Zhang Gonggui and the English Euphemism Dictionary published by LiuChunbao. Death euphemisms reflect metaphor and metonymy rhetoric, and therhetorical perspective for the inquiry is guaranteed to be a valid accesspoint. With the growth of globalization and mutual communication, traditionalconceptions and culture are progressively experiencing changes. All the civilizationson the globe are in joint fusion, and one culture affects the other. In thisregard, the comparison is not absolute (Slingerland, 2007).

Outline:

Introduction

1 LiteratureReview

1.1DeathEuphemism

1.1.1 Definition of Death Euphemism

1.1.2 Feature and Function of Death Euphemism

1.1.3 Previous Studies on Death Euphemism

1.2ConceptualMetaphor

1.2.1 An Overview of Conceptual Metaphor theory

1.2.2 Metaphorical Conceptualization in DeathEuphemism

1.2.3 Diachronic Evolution of Metaphorical Usages ofDeath Euphemism at Home and Abroad

2 ComparativeAnalyses of Death Euphemisms in English and Chinese

2.1 MetaphoricalConcepts in Chinese Death Euphemism

2.1.1 Death isSleep or Rest

2.1.2 Death isDeparture

2.1.3 Death is aJourney

2.1.4 Death is aLoss of Possession

2.2 MetaphoricalConcepts in English Death Euphemism

2.2.1 Death is abetter Location

2.2.2 Death isLife

2.2.3 Death is aSummoner

2.2.4 Death is aJourney

2.2.5 Death isPaying a Debt

2.3 Summary

3 Reasons forthe Similarities and Differences in Euphemism of Death in Chinese and English

3.1 From thePerspective of Religion

3.2 From thePerspective of Culture

3.3 From thePerspective of Class

4 Conclusion

References