委婉语与跨文化语境顺应

在跨文化语境下,委婉语的使用与理解受到文化差异的制约。西方的未来取向与中国的过去取向形成了不同的文化心理,相同的事物被赋予不同的含义以及迥异的委婉表达;相应时代与社会的规约促使交际者在即时语境中选择不同的委婉语;由于基督教的影响,英语中有多达百余种关于死亡的委婉语,而汉语中的死亡委婉语则受到道教与佛教的影响;封建制度所导致的中国文化根深蒂固的等级观念与西方倡导的自由平等观念在名讳、疾病与死亡、职业委婉语中得到了充分的展现。交际者在跨文化语境下应正确理解并恰当适时使用委婉语,动态地顺应交际语境、语言语境与文化语境,促使交际顺利进行。

Euphemism and the adaptation to intercultural context

In intercultural context, the usage and understanding of euphemism are influenced by cultural differences. The future-oriented western society and the past-oriented Chinese society have different cultural psychologies, thus different euphemistic expressions are used to refer to the same thing. Regulations and customs in different age and different society determine that the communicators should choose appropriate euphemisms to adapt to the immediate context. Hundreds of death euphemisms in English show the profound influence of Christianity on culture while many death euphemisms in Chinese are closed related to Taoism and Buddhism. More than two thousand years of feudalism leads to a strong sense of hierarchy of Chinese while the idea of freedom and equality is deeply rooted in westerners’ minds. All these cultural differences are vividly shown in the different euphemistic expressions of name, disease, death, career and so on. Based on the adaptation theory, this paper explores how the communicators use euphemisms properly to adapt themselves to the cultural context, communicative context and linguistic context in intercultural communication and thus facilitate the communication.