Abstract
A taboo word is a restricted use of a word due to cultural or moral prohibition. This chapter aims to investigate taboos in AFEs in Mandarin Chinese. The Middle-Class Politeness Criterion (Allan and Burridge 2006) is used to filter out taboos and classify them in terms of topics. Then, AFE taboos are analyzed by means of semantic change (Campbell 2004). Results of this study include: (1) AFE taboos in Mandarin Chinese can be classified as appearance, figure, occupation, and ability; (2) the linguistic mechanisms for semantic change in AFE taboos can be depicted as hypernymy and composed of widening and narrowing of meaning; and finally, (3) the hyponymy is made up of metaphors, metonymy, synecdoche, and degeneration. Knowledge of the usage and the perceptions of AFE taboos can be regarded as a prescriptive censorship of Mandarin Chinese.
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