Chinese taboo

He, Yun 2016. Chinese taboo. Chan, Sin-Wai and Minett, James, eds. The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language, Routledge, pp. 378-394.

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Abstract

Why are chopsticks called kuài in Chinese? Why do etiquette books advise us not to give clocks as presents in China? And why are tourism promotional slogans such as Wǒ-kàoChóngqìnɡ and Yī-zuò-jiào-chūn-de-chéngshì criticized for transgressing common decency? The key to answering these questions lies in the notion of taboo and related concepts such as euphemism. In principle, anything can be taboo, including persons (e.g. pregnant women), acts (e.g. incest) and things (e.g. blood), for example. This chapter, nevertheless, aims to provide an introduction to Chinese taboo, past and present, including taboo words and expressions, euphemisms, motivations, functions and means to avoid punishments and sanctions for taboo violations. In what follows, I first contextualize this article by delineating the key concepts, historicizing the milestones of Chinese taboo development and reviewing very briefly relevant literature, in a somewhat streamlined and simplified form. Then, after outlining the structure of this chapter, I proceed to present Chinese taboo in detail.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Modern Languages
Publisher:	Routledge
ISBN:	9781315675541
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	27 February 2024
Date of Acceptance:	1 November 2015
Last Modified:	18 Mar 2024 10:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/166573

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