Abstract:
 Taboo is a commonly existing cultural phenomenon among nations in the world, which regulates people’s language and social communication. The great difference between Chinese and western culture directly results in the great difference between Chinese and English taboos. Taboos in both Chinese and English reflect every corner of the different social life. Thus knowing the taboos of different cultures will acquire a better cross-culture communication. This paper gives a brief introduction of taboos and makes a comparison between English and Chinese taboos. This paper also involves in the factors causing the difference between two languages’ taboos. With the knowledge of the factors, people can know taboos well. Thus, in the cross-cultural communication, people will know what they should say and what they should not say. In this way, the communication will be much more harmonious and happier. Accordingly, promote cultural interaction.

Key words: Taboo, Pragmatic, Similarities and Difference

摘要：
禁忌是世界各民族之间普遍存在的一种文化现象，它规范了人们的言语行为与社会交际。而中西文化的巨大差异直接导致了汉英禁忌语的迥异。英汉禁忌语反映了不同的社会生活。因此了解不同文化的禁忌语对跨文化交际有很大的帮助。本文简单地介绍了禁忌语并且将中英文禁忌语做了比较。同时，本文还涉及到导致两种语言禁忌不同的因素。在了解到这些因素后，人们就能更好的掌握禁忌语。在跨文化交际中，人们便会知道什么该说什么不该说，使得交流更加愉快与融洽。从而促进文化的交流。

关键词：禁忌语；语用；共同点；差异性

1. A brief introduction of taboos and its pragmatic functions
Taboo is an integral part of language. It exists in almost all aspects of daily life. English and Chinese, like any language in the world, have their own taboos. In any language, although there is a clear expression of certain concepts, people always avoid direct reference to certain concepts or things. This kind of behavior is taboo phenomenon in languages.
1.1 The definition of taboos
Taboos come into being with the rise of the language. It is a very common language phenomenon. Taboos refer to the unpleasant or associated words that people cannot or dare not to express directly when communicating with each other, especially in public.
1.2 The origin of taboos
Taboo, was from the strange phenomenon found by a British named James Cook on the Tonga islands in the South Pacific in 1777: Some words only can be used by a particular social group. The local residents called this phenomenon taboo, whose original meaning is "sacred" and "no touch". Since then, taboos began to enter the anthropology, sociology, linguistics and other fields in the west.