开题报告模版(本科).doc

本 科 毕 业 论 文（设 计）开 题 报 告题 目： 英汉禁忌语的文化内涵与对比研究 学 院： 英语学院 专 业： 班 级： 学 号： 学生姓名： 指导教师： 开题日期： 1 Purpose and Significance： When we discuss language, it would have some kinds of definitions. For example: “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.” (Sapir, 1884-1939). “Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.” (Wardhaugh) “A language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.” (Chomsky, 1928)For me, language, as the carrier of culture, is its important part. In this global village, people get closer and closer with the rapid development of economy and information technology. So language becomes the main communicative tool in the interactions. That people from different nations and races mutually exchange is called intercultural communication. However, some misunderstandings and conflicts can not be avoided in the processes, due to existing taboos. Oxford English Dictionary defines taboo as: words likely to be considered offensive, shocking or indecent by certain people (through not necessarily by everyone). In Chinese taboo is regarded as the indelicate or dirty word. Taboo is explained by the Modern Chinese Dictionary as the prohibited words or actions.As a certain social cultural phenomenon, language taboos formation relies on a national profound cultural reserve. Taboos in Chinese and English are quite different because of big differences in the cultural background. In the 1970s, the reform and open policy of our country and the development of socialist market economy has made the intercultural communication promotion. In the 21st century, economic globalization gradually infiltrates and influences every aspect of human society. Economic globalization is an objective fact, and is also one of the inevitable trends of historical development. With the continual accelerated process of human globalization and information technology, people of different regions and different historical culture background exchanges increasingly in many fields such as economy, polity, culture, science and technology. Cross-cultural communication has become an important feature in todays world. Then, for English is a world language, it is necessary for us to learn English well. Today, English has become a second language for Chinese. Not only in business area, but also in the education area, it means a lot. The foreign capital enterprises and multinational companies burgeoned all around the resourceful continent of china. At the same time, Chinese people are given more employment opportunities. Besides, English has become one of majors in university. For them, the students of English could live on their major one day. In these situations which are mentioned above, we should try best to learn and understand each culture to get better intercultural communication. Especially, it is important to get a good knowledge of language taboos between English and Chinese. This study will bring us to grasp some information of cross-cultural background, and learn some knowledge about mutual cultures by discussing English and Chinese taboos origins, backgrounds, characteristics etc. Actually, in our daily life, we will face some topics or words which should be forbidden when we make conservation with foreigners in English. For instance, when business man contacts with foreign clients, it is significant to pay more attention to the taboos. Generally speaking, almost the people from western countries keep some their taboos, like privacy. Western people like to keep a certain distance between each other. They would not like to ask others age, marriage, salary etc. There is an English proverb“A mans home is his castle”. The meaning is that home is a sacred and inviolable place which person can not be allowed to enter without any permissions. If you regardless of it and break into their “private room”, they will feel uncomfortable and regard this as a violation, and finally you may come into trouble and cooperation fail in the end. The key point to keep positive relationship with the clients is associating with temperate manners and without too much interference. That means, you should know each other well so that the both could cooperate in satisfactory way and achieve a win-win. Even in the education area, teachers and students should notice the importance of taboos in English learning. That some teachers may avoid explaining taboo topic directly, like sex topic, will make students confused. It is obvious that the work engaged in foreign language teaching and related work will inevitably involve cross-cultural communication. In cross-cultural communication, cultural practices, taboos is a sensitive topic, because some of the taboos in a particular cultural or ethnic groups, different regions, different places, even on different occasions are likely “a miss is as good as mile”. Besides, it is a foundation stage that students study English in school. Therefore, how to make smooth progress of cross-cultural communication, and achieve cross-cultural communication purposes, has become todays foreign language teachings one of the important research topics. Teachers would better explain these or those taboos to the students, leading them to use the target language national way of thinking, values, behavior patterns to restrict the target language behavior, instead of using the mother tongue of thinking. When we face some taboos, we should not evade them and find them out, then study. Culture awareness can ensure using the language properly. So it is best to develop a habit to have eyes on taboos. When you keep this kind of habit, you will have sensibility to the cultural distinctions gradually, and know how to handling the proper language. The purpose of foreign language teaching is to make students learn the language skills, but its ultimate goal is to develop language learners communicative competence, and help them to do the cross-cultural communication. A persons values, ethics, ways of thinking are now being influenced by their national culture. Long-term effects make people gradually develop a fixed, habitual pattern. Cross-cultural communications need to pay attention to the fixed pattern from the heart, which is formed by its own national culture influence. As a cross-cultural communication, first of all, you should respect cultural differences, without any prejudices or exclusion of others cultures. People can not exclude a foreign culture psychologically, but from the heart to accept a foreign culture, especially when we get along with people from quite different culture, in order to develop a good ability to adapt to the cultural acceptance. Taboo learning is one of methods to develop such kind of ability. However, the ultimate goal is to achieve smooth communications between members of different cultures.According to the analysis of the close relationship between taboos learning, language learning and cross-cultural communication, it is obvious that taboo study contributes to break through the West bound for the communicative participants. They can enjoy their various cultures, recognize and accept each others cultural hidden features, finally adjust their attitudes in mutual understanding, deepen communication, and achieve the cross-cultural communication purpose. Also, the introduction of English taboo language learning in foreign language teaching will help to deepen the understanding of the target language culture, to avoid the taboo violated in the communication process, to improve cross-cultural communication skills, and to achieve the ultimate goal of foreign language teaching in the end.This study will introduce the definition of taboos briefly, and you can make a better understand of the taboos category. When people realize taboos and know how to avoid them, your behavior will present properly, not rude any more. Also, this study will teach you to become a man with well cultivation, who will respect others by noticing taboos. Its final friendly tips help you avoid these taboos in the intercultural communication, and make a good conversation smoothly. The study on taboo language plays an important role in the elimination of cross-cultural communication barriers and in the promotion of the smooth progress of cross-cultural communication. In a word, every country or nationality has its own taboos as we are living in different environment. What we should do is to know about the differences and similarities of taboo words between English and Chinese, and then we can make full use of them to create a more harmonious atmosphere for intercultural communication and corporation. After that, even if we encounter some taboos, we can quickly realize them and make a sudden response to adopt euphemism or other ways to replace them, which is our target why we do this study. Though our Chinese culture is assimilated by Westerns, there are also existing big differences which can not be ignored in English and Chinese. However, at the same time, the mix together of various cultures remind us to hold the characters of native culture and improve it by learning others, which is the optimal method to enhance the international communication. 2 Main Content and Major Issues to be Solved： As the carrier of culture, language reflects the culture. Culture is the mixture of faith, custom, life style and behavior. All of these are almost held by the native people in some certain geographical area. In language, we can see that each country has its own unique culture, and each nationality has various culture backgrounds. Culture has an assignable influence on the usage and development of language. So learning a foreign language not only needs to learn the language itself, but also to understand the culture. What are contained in culture is very wide. It includes the history, social customs, literature, etc. In language learning, language exchange and international contact, it is the necessary conditions and means to study the history, culture and literature of English-speaking countries. This study is focus on the taboos. Taboos, the original intent is sacred, untouchable or something to be extremely paid attention. In addition, taboo is a kind of linguistic phenomenon with cultural roots. So we can regard taboo as a kind of culture. In this paper, we start from the brief introduction about the study. In the first chapter, it generally describes the study on taboos and tells the significance, which could give readers initial impression and concepts. Then the second chapter will narrate the previous study on taboos. It is well known that taboo is a popular language phenomenon in human language. For a lone time, it has been an important part of study which attracts many scholars and experts. For example, in 18th century, James Cook, an English sailor, came to an island named Tonga during his explorations in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean, and found that there were exiting many amazing local social phenomena, such as certain words can not just use, otherwise make people feel embarrassing, unpleasant, or even disgusting, fear. Local residents call these phenomenons “tabu” into English, which later become the English word “taboo”. As far as Chinese is concerned, Chinese taboo has a long history. As early as the Han Dynasty, the taboo words have appeared in a number of historical books. The book Han Shu. Yi Wen Zhi(汉书. 艺文志) records that“及拘者为之, 则牵于禁忌，泥于小数, 舍人事而任鬼神。” China is a differential pattern for the cultural orientation of society, and always particularly emphasis on the relationship between father and son, emperor and administration. So it is obvious that taboo as a cultural phenomenon have existed before in the Han Dynasty in China. After that, next is the definition and origin of taboo. Then the paper has analyzed the features of taboo, which could help us distinguish the different taboos. Besides, when we have a good knowledge of taboos features, we can realize them as soon as possible in daily life. And we can make an appropriate response at once. Then, the content about, the comparison of Chinese and English taboo comes in the chapter 3. In this part, both the similarities and differences between English and Chinese taboos will be introduced. When people focus on the big distinction, the scholars should realize that verbal taboo has something in common for almost all the languages in the word. In other words, although from the perspective of cultural context, there are a large number of quite different taboo words existing in English and Chinese respectively, which does not mean that there are no similar taboo words or taboo topics between English an Chinese, the reason is that most taboo words or expressions were originated from humans dread and superstition about nature in ancient time. Several same taboo aspects between English and Chinese will be expounded respectively in this section. In analysis of the similarities, taboos on religion, God, disease, death, secretions, excretions, sex words and sex topics will be listed out and expounded. In the following analysis of the differences, this part will introduce several taboos in privacy which is regarding age, weight, income, marriage, in naming and addressing, in number and in color. In my point of view, it is a quite interesting part. People can learn to know how to deal with the communication with foreigners in the daily life. Have read this part, Chinese people would not ask the some friendly but private questions to western people, like “how old are you”. They will start to get along with foreigners in other way which is different from the way to get along with Chinese. Then, according to the given information above, the paper give the discussion. Chapter 4 has a brief presentation of taboos in teaching and learning, and in social and intercultural communication. The significant part is the following strategies to manage taboos. It will give you some friendly tips in teaching, learning and intercultural communication separately. When we get a good knowledge of these taboos, then how to avoid them become the most important thing. However, in this part, people may get some useful information in detail, which can really help people solve some embarrassing problems when people get into trouble with taboos. There is old saying that when you learned it, application is the key. Finally, the conclusion comes to the chapter 5. There will be the main idea about the whole passage. 3 Research Approach： First of all, I have an interest in language learning. So I choose this direction of my graduation paper. Certain language and certain cultural is always associated. Language rooted in the national culture, and national culture is reflected in the mirror. Taboo language as a special phenomenon, reflects the different national traditions and value systems. So I choose the topic on “taboo”. Then, after the discussion with my thesis advisor, the title A Comparative Study of English and Chinese Taboos and Their Cultural Connotations” is determined. Secondly, the beginning analysis is made. The main steps are to make a comprehension of this title and find my own point of views, then try to find what should be mentioned and discussed in the article, and make a list, which contains the main content about the study. That is the paper outline. As it is related to the structure of the paper, outline turns to be important. So making more discussions with advisor and doing more or less of modifications become necessary. Thirdly, due to the chosen topic, the work of research could start. During the process of analysis, some relevant information could be found in library and on the internet. All of these could bring us some other inspirations. For example, in the book Linguistics (语言学教程)，Hu Zhuanglin tells the definition of language, which make a better understanding for us. Also, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure helps a lot. Almost the others periodicals and papers can be found, so that it is convenient for us to do this study on theirs, which is called “Standing on the shoulders of giants see the world”. Even though there have existed many precious studies on my topic“taboo”, my passage should have its own characteristic and style. At the same time, the study also needs some appropriate reference books, such as Philip Thodys bookDont Do It: A Dictionary of the Forbidden, Axtell and Roger Es bookDos and Taboos around the World, and Tang Degens bookCross-culture Communication. Depending on these references, the paper could get more precise and accurate, and the passage could trend to more professional. In the content, the paper should be related the reality, can not be just talked. What the study discuss and analyze should solve the present problems. That means, the study should have its significant, which definitely should be present in the paper. My purpose is to help better understand each other, and be aware of how to make the appropriate behavior in the language communication. If having been aware of communication errors, the scholars need to know how to take remedial measures to adjust their speech, to avoid communication conflicts. Cross-cultural communication awareness tr