This book offers a precise and rigorous analysis of the meanings of offensive words in Chinese. Adopting a semantic and cultural approach, the authors demonstrate how offensive words can and should be systematically researched, documented and accounted for as a valid aspect of any language. The book will be of interest to academics, practitioners and students of sociolinguistics, language and culture, linguistic taboo, Chinese studies and Chinese linguistics.

Swearing plays an important role in everyday language. We swear in the streets, at school, universities, at work and at home, on the means of transport, with family and friends. People have used swear words for centuries and they will continue to use them. The Anatomy of Polish Offensive Words examines offensive and vulgar language of young Poles in their everyday life including its forms, uses, manifestations and the ways in which people censor their words and sentences. The book presents a novel viewpoint on people’s psyche since we observe how society reacts to other humans so as to impose taboos by censoring Polish language. This book is the first book written in English on Polish swearing intended for the international reader (both linguists and non-linguists) who can benefit from it. It offers an intriguing look into Polish swear words, their classification in terms of offensiveness both from the perspective of quantitative and qualitative research but also from the AI (Artificial Intelligence) viewpoint. Mixed methods research, i.e., a questionnaire-based study and a corpus-based study, makes the research original. The findings deepen our understanding of swearing and its role in language.

The Chinese language is rich in slang, vulgarity, & other imaginative words. Now, there is a guide to the hidden underside of everyday speech in China. Outrageous Chinese is the book students of Chinese have been waiting for, with humorous yet informative chapters on love, life, food, business, & more. Caution: Contains words that may be considered vulgar or offensive.

How was the concept of 'personality' perceived in (late-imperial) China? Re-constructing the main features describing the individual, this volume, firmly based in textual sources, is a reflection on personality and its attributes in China. It discusses terms that express the propensity, inclinations, predispositions, and temperament of subjects, departing from the descriptions that represent one’s and the other’s self, as well as terms that describe or label a person's main qualities or defects. As judgments contribute to formulate the image of ourselves and others, when talking of personality not only individual characters (biological traits, cultural basis, innate and acquired traits and habits) are looked into, but also social values and collective mentality, as well as individual and group subjectivity.

Between 1949 and 1997, Hong Kong transformed from a struggling British colonial outpost into a global financial capital. Made in Hong Kong delivers a new narrative of this metamorphosis, revealing Hong Kong both as a critical engine in the expansion and remaking of postwar global capitalism and as the linchpin of Sino-U.S. trade since the 1970s. Peter E. Hamilton explores the role of an overlooked transnational Chinese elite who fled to Hong Kong amid war and revolution. Despite losing material possessions, these industrialists, bankers, academics, and other professionals retained crucial connections to the United States. They used these relationships to enmesh themselves and Hong Kong with the U.S. through commercial ties and higher education. By the 1960s, Hong Kong had become a manufacturing powerhouse supplying American consumers, and by the 1970s it was the world’s largest sender of foreign students to American colleges and universities. Hong Kong’s reorientation toward U.S. international leadership enabled its transplanted Chinese elites to benefit from expanding American influence in Asia and positioned them to act as shepherds to China’s reengagement with global capitalism. After China’s reforms accelerated under Deng Xiaoping, Hong Kong became a crucial node for China’s export-driven development, connecting Chinese labor with the U.S. market. Analyzing untapped archival sources from around the world, this book demonstrates why we cannot understand postwar globalization, China’s economic rise, or today’s Sino-U.S. trade relationship without centering Hong Kong.

Booknews. The 851 terms defined include slurs used to disparage nearly every ethnic group in U.S. society, ethnic euphemisms and code words, and vogue or disputed terms heard in ongoing multicultural debates. In addition to providing known etymology and usage, entries explore how meaning varies by social context or circumstance, and how it has changed over time. Many include brief quotations from recent writings. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

When Mao and the Chinese Communist Party won power in 1949, they were determined to create new, revolutionary human beings. Their most precise instrument of ideological transformation was a massive program of linguistic engineering. They taught everyone a new political vocabulary, gave old words new meanings, converted traditional terms to revolutionary purposes, suppressed words that expressed "incorrect" thought, and required the whole population to recite slogans, stock phrases, and scripts that gave "correct" linguistic form to "correct" thought. They assumed that constant repetition would cause the revolutionary formulae to penetrate people's minds, engendering revolutionary beliefs and values. In an introductory chapter, Dr. Ji assesses the potential of linguistic engineering by examining research on the relationship between language and thought. In subsequent chapters, she traces the origins of linguistic engineering in China, describes its development during the early years of communist rule, then explores in detail the unprecedented manipulation of language during the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976. Along the way, she analyzes the forms of linguistic engineering associated with land reform, class struggle, personal relationships, the Great Leap Forward, Mao-worship, Red Guard activism, revolutionary violence, Public Criticism Meetings, the model revolutionary operas, and foreign language teaching. She also reinterprets Mao’s strategy during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, showing how he manipulated exegetical principles and contexts of judgment to "frame" his alleged opponents. The work concludes with an assessment of the successes and failures of linguistic engineering and an account of how the Chinese Communist Party relaxed its control of language after Mao's death.