① 作者简介： 张立伟，武汉工业学院工商学院外国语言文学系英语专业本科生 （ 湖北 武汉，430065 ） 。
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浅谈英语的禁忌语★ 张立伟★
gious conviction that these gods controlled the world that they were living in. Therefore ，the first thing they did was to respect these gods through language. There is an example from the Seventh Commandment of the Ten Commandment in Bible — — — “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God ，for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name ”. In this way the earliest linguistic taboo emerged. The feudal patriarchal stage Feudal society is rigidly stratified. A feudal country is usually controlled by the royals and sometimes together with those considered to possess great people power given by god. During the feudal times， were not equal to the rulers and were suppressed by their superiors. The distinction between the upper and the lower classes was also reflected in the evaluation of the language used by them respectively. The words used by the upper class were considered good and elegant while those by the lower class were regarded as vulgar and indecent and should be avoided in public. The modern democratic stage In modern society ，as a result of the development of science and technology ，many natural phenomena are no longer mysterious. Human beings not only constantly improve their abilities to exploit the world through their great wisdom and knowledge but also make efforts to explore the extraterrestrial world. Thereby ，the superstitious elements in linguistic taboos decrease while those reflecting spiritual civilization increase. Ⅱ. The form of expressions on linguistic taboo There are taboos for religion ，sex ，death ，disease ，social bias，and they mainly embody in the following aspects. In vocabulary Roughly speaking ，taboo words in English fall into three types， namely obscenities， profanities and vulgarities. In obscenities Obscene words refer to words relating to sex in a shocking and offensive way ，and they may cause offence to the social moral principles. They usually go out of use on public occasions and cannot appear in literary language. These words are related to sexual behaviors and thus to be avoided in formal con-
“sacred ” and “consecrated ” ， and on the other ， “uncanny ” ，“dangerous ” and “unclean ” . He introduced it into English in his description of his third voyage around the world in 1777. However ， taboo phenomena are not unique in Tonga. Instead ，it has long existed in all cultures and languages throughout the world. As is mentioned above ，linguistic taboo is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also a kind of social phenomenon. The development of society has influenced the development of linguistic taboo. To reveal the whole picture of linguistic taboo ， a review of the history of linguistic taboo is necessary. “The evolution of linguistic taboo has generally experienced three stages according to the history of human society ： the primitive superstitions stage ，the feudal patriarchal stage ， and modern democratic stage. But there is no explicit demarcation line between three stages. ” The primitive superstitious stages People in the primitive society didn t get to know well about nature ，and most natural phenomena such as lightning and thunder were beyond the understanding of human beings. When these phenomena happened ，they thought that they were acting against and punished by certain supernatural creatures possessing great power. They thought that they would be safe or rewarded only when they were loyal to them. As a result，the primitive people created different kinds of gods. They held a strong reli-
In any language persons，things and activities that are taboos should not be talked about or should be mentioned in a roundabout way. Words and expressions related to these social taboos are linguistic taboo ，and as an integral part of language ，it is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also a social phenomenon. Like other parts of language ，the origin of linguistic taboo is deeply rooted in the social and cultural background and it changes with the development of human society in order to satisfy human beings needs for smooth communications. Linguistic taboos are a reflection of the social development and the value concepts and beliefs of the culture and they exist in every aspect of peoples life. A Lack of knowledge about language taboos or improper use of linguistic taboos may lead to misunderstandings， conflicts and other unknown serious consequences in the cross － cultural communications. I. The evolution of linguistic taboo The word “taboo ” was borrowed from Tonga ， an island group in Polynesia ，and its first recorded use in English was by Captain James Cook ， a British navigator. He came to the Archipelago of Tonga during his explorations in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean. There he heard the word from the local people ，which originally referred to persons，activities （ including speech ） ，or things under prohibition because they were considered ， on the one hand ，