Linguistic Word Taboos in Chinese Culture

Taboo is the prohibition of an act or the use of a word under pain of punishment. This paper is a combination of socio-psychological and linguistic study since homophonic word taboo is a socio-linguistic phenomenon in Chinese culture. The objective of this piece of research is to investigate Chinese...

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Main Author: Andrew, Yau-hau Tse
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/2159/
http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/2159/1/Linguistic_Word_Taboos_in_Chinese_Culture.pdf
id ump-2159
recordtype eprints
spelling ump-21592015-03-03T07:55:00Z http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/2159/ Linguistic Word Taboos in Chinese Culture Andrew, Yau-hau Tse P Philology. Linguistics Taboo is the prohibition of an act or the use of a word under pain of punishment. This paper is a combination of socio-psychological and linguistic study since homophonic word taboo is a socio-linguistic phenomenon in Chinese culture. The objective of this piece of research is to investigate Chinese attitudes towards homophonic word taboos in Hong Kong. Questionnaires were distributed to seven groups of people, old and young, male and female, with questions related to number four, which is phonologically linked to the meaning of ‘death’ in Chinese culture. The findings revealed that old females were more superstitious than young students; no significant difference was found between old males and old females; young male students and young female students were comparatively not superstitious. To conclude, superstition is a social phenomenon and further research is needed to investigate the impacts of word taboos in different cultures. Keywords: word taboos, culture, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, superstition 2011 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/2159/1/Linguistic_Word_Taboos_in_Chinese_Culture.pdf Andrew, Yau-hau Tse (2011) Linguistic Word Taboos in Chinese Culture. British Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 1 (2). pp. 134-145. ISSN 2048-1268
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Local University
institution Universiti Malaysia Pahang
building UMP Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
language English
topic P Philology. Linguistics
spellingShingle P Philology. Linguistics
Andrew, Yau-hau Tse
Linguistic Word Taboos in Chinese Culture
description Taboo is the prohibition of an act or the use of a word under pain of punishment. This paper is a combination of socio-psychological and linguistic study since homophonic word taboo is a socio-linguistic phenomenon in Chinese culture. The objective of this piece of research is to investigate Chinese attitudes towards homophonic word taboos in Hong Kong. Questionnaires were distributed to seven groups of people, old and young, male and female, with questions related to number four, which is phonologically linked to the meaning of ‘death’ in Chinese culture. The findings revealed that old females were more superstitious than young students; no significant difference was found between old males and old females; young male students and young female students were comparatively not superstitious. To conclude, superstition is a social phenomenon and further research is needed to investigate the impacts of word taboos in different cultures. Keywords: word taboos, culture, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, superstition
format Article
author Andrew, Yau-hau Tse
author_facet Andrew, Yau-hau Tse
author_sort Andrew, Yau-hau Tse
title Linguistic Word Taboos in Chinese Culture
title_short Linguistic Word Taboos in Chinese Culture
title_full Linguistic Word Taboos in Chinese Culture
title_fullStr Linguistic Word Taboos in Chinese Culture
title_full_unstemmed Linguistic Word Taboos in Chinese Culture
title_sort linguistic word taboos in chinese culture
publishDate 2011
url http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/2159/
http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/2159/1/Linguistic_Word_Taboos_in_Chinese_Culture.pdf
first_indexed 2023-09-18T21:55:43Z
last_indexed 2023-09-18T21:55:43Z
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