Chinese language and culture: A study of homonyms, lucky words and taboos
汉语语言与文化: 同音词, 吉利话与禁忌之研究
Margaret M. Y. Sung 严棉

Abstract 摘要
Many case studies illustrating the interdependency of a language and its culture have been presented in recent years; but surprisingly, little attention has been paid to the interrelationships of the Chinese language and culture. [1] With the hope of closing this gap, this paper presents a study of the relationship between Chinese homonyms and Chinese culture. The paper will examine how the Chinese express their culture-oriented desires by choosing words which are homonyms or rhymes for the character for the idea they want to symbolize. Further, it will detail how the Chinese avoid saying words which possess the same pronunciations as words for ill omens. The data in this paper were collected largely during personal field research in Taiwan in the summer of 1970. [2] Mandarin pronunciations were latinized in the Pinyin system; other dialectal expressions are transcribed in broad IPA symbols, with tone marks left out.

近十几年来, 研究语言与文化间的互赖性,已成为社会语言学的一个重要论题. 本文的目的在以汉语为题材, 讨论汉语与汉人文化之关系.汉语之拥有丰富的同音词已有很久的历史. 同音词之形成可归因于:（１）汉语语音的特性，和（２）汉语方言的历史音变．在现代汉人社会中，人们普遍地应用同音词的语意混淆性来表示他们日常生活中风俗习惯上的希冀与祈求．在喜庆年节和乔迁时，人们以那些与吉祥词藻同音的物品或食物来馈赠或款待亲友，以期获得求吉利的效果；以忌用那些与不吉利的词藻同音的物品和禁说那些与吉祥相违的同音词汇，以期达到避邪招福的目的。

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