【 Abstract 】 Euphemism is one kind of figures of speech, and it refers to the substitution of mild or vague or roundabout expression for harsh or direct one. With the development of the human society, euphemism plays a more and more important role in our daily life. Euphemism is a common language strategy in communication. This paper is based on the contrastive analysis and designed to study the definition, pragmatic function, history of euphemism and its usage in common life. This paper focuses on the different attitudes towards birth, death, age, aesthetic sense and so on between Chinese and American people, and the analysis of the social foundation of these differences, in order to represent the influence of different ideology background, that is, Christianity in America and Confucianism in China. Through this paper, the reader could     understand the cultural differences better and achieve smooth cross-cultural communication.

【 Key Words 】 euphemisms; cultural differences; comparison

1. Introduction

With the development of the world, cross-cultural communication grows to be a necessity in everyone’s life. As we know, the definition of culture is that “it is the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning.” [1] Chinese and Americans are born to different cultures and they are different in many aspects, so cultural differences are the hinder of the cross-cultural communication and how to clear away the obstacle has become the problem that the world has to face.

Owing to the creation and development of the language, human culture could transmit from generation to generation. Language is not only the carrier of culture, but also the representative of it. Language is influenced by culture, and it reflects culture. The understanding of one requires the understanding of the other.

In the long period of evolution and practice, human beings have been knowing and remaking the objective world, and in the meantime they have been establishing and developing their own languages and cultures, thus forming various language patterns and cultural communities.

As part of language, euphemisms have existed throughout recorded history and with the development of society, it permeates every field. Euphemisms are “mild, pleasant or inoffensive expressions substituted for harsh, blunt, coarse or unpleasant ones.” [2]The reasons why people use them are complicated. Sometimes they are used for avoiding taboos; and sometimes they are used for being polite or considering the feelings of other people. “Without euphemisms, the world comes to a halt because of the frication and resentments would arise among people.”[3]How to use and understand euphemism becomes more and more important nowadays. As a matter of fact, it is a mirror that reflects its own culture, so the study of euphemism may clear away the obstacle in certain degree. There are abundant euphemisms both in Chinese and English and they flourish in different cultures. Since there are different cultures, different comprehension of euphemism might cause the conflict between these two peoples. So through the study of euphemism, we can have a better understanding of the cultural differences between Chinese and American, and then communicate better during the process.

2. A brief introduction of euphemism

2.1 The definition of euphemism

The word “euphemism” comes from a Greek word, “eu-” meaning “good” and “-pheme” meaning “speech” or “saying”, and thus its literary meaning is “a good speech or good saying”. Later on, euphemism is defined differently and more precisely. In the New Edition of the Oxford Concise Dictionary （ 1976 ） , it is described

as “substitution of mild or vague or roundabout expression for harsh or direct one.” [4] It is taken as “the substitution of supposedly milder or more decent language for what is felt to be harsh or unseemly” by English linguistic Thomas Pyles in his Word and Expressions of American English. [5] In China, the first definition of euphemism was given by famous writer ,Chen Wangdao （陈望道 ,1890 — 1977 ） in his 《修辞学发凡》， the definition being that “ one kind of figures of speech, saying something indirectly, but connoting and substituting with roundabout and implicit words or even metaphorical expression. ” ( 委婉是修辞的一种，即说话不直白本意，只用委曲含蓄的话来烘托暗示 ) 。 [6]As a matter of fact, Chinese euphemism has long existed and research into it can be dated back to the Spring – Autumn period. It was called Wanqu ( 婉曲 ) at that time.

2.2 A brief history of English and Chinese euphemism