Abstract: For the fear and taboo of death, people have created lots of death euphemisms to avoid talking about death directly. Death euphemism is a linguistic phenomenon as well as a cultural phenomenon. The thesis aims at analyzing the differences between Chinese and American death euphemisms in religion, political system, funeral customs and social economy, which can help language learners and users to have a better understanding of language features of death euphemisms in both English and Chinese language and the different culture values that death euphemisms reflect. The author mainly uses the comparative analysis and documentary study to explain these differences between China and the United States. The results of this study have some reference significance for cross-cultural communication and language researchers, and also have significance to improve Chinese or English euphemism teaching.

Key words: death euphemism; difference analysis; political system; religion; funeral customs

CONTENTS

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction.1

2. Literature Review2

3. Differences of Chinese and American Death Euphemism in Some Fields 3

3.1 Differences in Political Systems

3.1.1 Death Euphemism from American Democratic Systems

3.1.2 Death Euphemism from Chinese Feudal Systems

3.1.3 Summary 

3.2 Differences in Religion

3.2.1 Death Euphemism from American Christianity

3.2.2 Death Euphemism from Chinese Buddhism and Taoism

3.2.3 Summary 

3.3 Differences in Funeral Systems

3.3.1 Relevant American Death Euphemism from Funeral Systems

3.3.2 Relevant Chinese Death Euphemism from Funeral Systems

3.3.3 Summary

 3.4 Differences in Social Life

4. Conclusions.9

Bibliography. .11

Acknowledgements. 12