A Survey of Chinese EFL Learners’ Perception of English Euphemism 30.doc

PAGE  PAGE 27 A Survey of Chinese EFL Learners’ Perception of English Euphemism ABSTRACT Euphemism, which is frequently used in both English and Chinese, is a linguistic phenomenon as well as a cultural one. In a sense, without proper application of euphemism, communication would be impossible. Euphemism has become one of the major subjects of cross-cultural studies as people come to realize the significance of euphemism. Therefore, English teachers should pay attention to euphemism teaching so as to improve students cross-cultural awareness and communicative competence. In China, as far as euphemism teaching is concerned, there are no monographs or treatises. To see how well the students have grasped English euphemism, a survey was conducted among 28 college students who enrolled in Jiangsu University. The data was collected by the researcher and analyzed by SPSS 10.0 for windows. The results reveal that (1) The sexual difference in the perception of English euphemism is not significant.(2) The EFL learners can grasp the English euphemism well. (3)The English proficiency has some relationship with the perception of English euphemism The results indicate that the majority of the subjects have proper awareness and communication competence in various degrees. They do especially well in category 1 but not very well in category 2. I hope that the results of my research will be helpful to college English teachers in motivating their students. But it should be admitted that there are some constraints and limitations in this dissertation. But I will improve and continue my research in the future with the help of other theories. Keywords: Euphemism; Perception；Sexual Difference; English Proficiency; English Teaching 摘 要 中国英语学习者委婉语使用情况调查 委婉语是一种语言现象，也是一种文化现象。不能正确理解和使用委婉语将会给交际带来极大的障碍。随着委婉语的重要性越来越为人们所关注和认识，委婉语已成为跨文化研究的重要对象之一。委婉语教学的目的就是通过提高学生理解和使用委婉语的能力以培养学生的跨文化意识和交际能力。 作者发现在中国对于委婉语教学的研究几乎还是一片空白，关于委婉语教学的专著极少，一些关于委婉语教学的论文也只是探讨了委婉语的重要性并没有提出以何种模式或方法来进行教学。因此，委