摘要

人们在交际过程中，出于种种考虑，有些话语不便或不能直说，需要用含蓄曲折而又能传达本意的词语代替，这种具有曲达特点的话语就是委婉语。委婉语是一种普遍而又复杂的社会语言现象。
本论文通过对委婉语的主要功能的研究，讨论在跨文化交际下中西方委婉语 的相同与不同之处及其构成原因，最后举例跨文化交际中常见委婉使用的例子，对比英汉委婉语中的文化内涵，旨在加深对委婉语的进一步认识，从而能够更好的在跨文化交际中运用委婉语。

关键词：委婉语; 社会语言现象; 跨文化交际
 
Abstract

In our daily communication, due to many reasons, there are always some things or feelings that we cannot express directly. In this case, we have to use some euphemistic words to take place of direct expressions. So these euphemistic words are called euphemism which is a universal but complicated social language phenomenon.
In this paper, we try to find out the similarities and differences of Chinese and English euphemisms through studying the functions of euphemism. And we also have done a comparison of some aspects of the origin of euphemism. We hope our research can help people better understand and use euphemism in cross- cultural communication.

Keywords: euphemism; social language phenomenon; cross-cultural communication