A Contrastive Study of English and Chinese Taboos in Cross-cultural Communication

摘要

A commonly cultural phenomenon in the human history is taboo, which is a strong social prohibition related to any area of human society. Different social and cultural backgrounds will produce different taboos. Lacking the knowledge of social customs may cause conflicts in cross-cultural communication. So it is necessary to know more about taboos. This paper analyzes the the cultural similarities and difference between Chinese and English taboos in a contrastive way in cross-cultural communication and stresses the importance of?understanding and mastering taboos, so that they can reduce the inter-communicative barriers and mistakes and improve their communicative ability.