Abstract:

With the development of economic globalization, the communication between China and the West are getting increasingly frequent. However, cultural differences become a major obstacle in cross-cultural communication. Language is the carrier of culture, which reflects the connotation of it. Taboos, which refer to the words and expressions or topics people are not willing to talk openly in certain social context, exist in every culture. Knowing about taboos in the target culture and avoiding using them in certain social context can help to guarantee a smooth cross-cultural communication. Based on relevant theory in pragmatics, this paper tries to make a comparative study of Chinese and English taboos. It’s the author’s hope that the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western values could be revealed and perceived. Some application strategies are then tentatively suggested to help achieve a successful communication, and consequently conflicts that may arise from the misunderstanding of taboos could be prevented.

Key words: cross-cultural communication; taboo; values; application strategies

摘要：

随着经济全球化的发展，中西方交流日益频繁。在国际跨文化交流中，中西文化差异成为人们之间交流的障碍。语言是文化的载体，反映着文化的内涵。禁忌语通常是指在交际场合人们不能或者不愿说出的某些词汇或者话题。禁忌语作为一种特殊的语言现象普遍存在于每一种文化之中。了解禁忌语，避免使用禁忌语对于成功实现跨文化交际有着重要的作用。
本文以语用学理论为基础，对中英禁忌语进行对比分析，比较其价值观异同，并提出回避策略，旨在帮助人们在跨文化交际中更加有效地、成功地进行交流，避免冲突。

关键词：跨文化交际; 禁忌语; 价值观; 规避策略

1. Introduction
With the development of economy, globalization accelerates the pace of intercultural communication. As we all know, culture is influencing communication in a delicate and far-reaching way. However, different cultural backgrounds will definitely bring about unavoidable misunderstanding and even conflict in intercultural communication. People from different cultural backgrounds always communicate with each other according to their own understanding of other cultures which ramifies from their own cultures. This often leads to misunderstanding. Taboo is one of the things that will cause misapprehension. Violating taboos can be offensive and impolite and may even break social relations. Certain words and expressions are avoided in order not to cause conflict or embarrassment.  Language is the carrier of culture, so linguistic taboos are also reflection of culture, customs and values.