ThefeatuersofEnglishEuphemism1(1).doc

铜仁学院外语系2011-2012学年第二学期“语言学”课程论文题目：The features of English Euphemism姓名：学号：专业：英语教育班级：教师：日期：2012年5月25日The features of English EuphemismAbstract: Currently, it is known that euphemism plays an important role in peoples social communication and exists in almost every culture and society. The aim of this paper is to help the language learner to understand euphemism better, Thought analyzed the features of English Euphemism, we know many words make people embarrassed and unhappy. In order to avoid the offensiveness and misunderstandings, people usually use euphemism to replace with the unpleasant and rude words in communication. Key words: English，Euphemism，Definition ，Feature One of the most important ways for our human beings to communicate with others is language. Language is an important means for people to maintain their social relationship. However, there are many things which are supposed to be unspeakable. Many words also make people embarrassed and unhappy. So, in order to avoid the offensiveness and misunderstandings, people usually use the indirect or pleasant expressions to replace with those unpleasant and rude words in communication. We call that euphemism. Euphemism plays an important role in peoples social communication and exists in almost every culture and society.1. The Definition of EuphemismEuphemism is a common linguistic phenomenon in all cultures, it takes an very important role in peoples daily communication. Euphemism is originated from the Greek. It is prefix “eu” means good, pleasant, and its root “pheme” means speech. Thus, euphemism literally means “to speak with good words or in a pleasant manner” (Silver 1990). According to Allan and Burridge (Burridge 1991), the definition of euphemism is: A euphemism is used as an alternative to a dispreferred expression, in order to avoid possible loss of face: either ones own face or through going offense, that of the audience, or of some third party. Many people have defined euphemism. There are some definitions of euphemism below: (1) mild or vague expression substituted for a harsher or more direct one(Pocket 1996).(2) the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh or blunt (Webste 1997). (3) the use of a more pleasant, less direct name for something thought to be unpleasant.(Group 1988).(4) A euphemism is a polite, pleasant, or neutral word or expression that is used to refer to something which people may find upsetting or embarrassing to talk about, for example, sex, the human body or death(Cobuild 2000). (5) Rhetorical trope: a pleasant replacement for an objectionable word that has pejorative connotations(Routledge 2000).2. The features of English Euphemism2.1 National characteristic Euphemism is a common language phenomenon in the world culture. However, different countries and different nations in different surroundings and social environment have different production and living manners, and their culture depositions are also different. So euphemism in different language has some differences either. The differences are the representation of the national characteristic. There is a typical example about the word “poor”, it described an young woman who lived with hard condition. The paragraph uses several euphemisms of poor: “I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I was not poor, I was needy. Then they said it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy, that I was culturally deprived. Then they told me deprived was a bad image, that I was underprivileged. Then they told me that underprivileged was overused, that I was disadvantaged. I still do not have a dime but I have a great vocabulary!” Needy (lack of commodity), culturally deprived (lose the opportunity of education), underprivileged (having less money and fewer opportunities than most people in society), disadvantaged (humble). Those four words are the euphemisms for “poor” which the government used to cheat the public. At the same time, While addressing people of senior age or senior authority, we may say “nilao” “zhang lao” (Chengyong 2011), it not only demonstrated the age is large, but contains deeper respect. But the situation is exactly opposite in British and American countries, old is the topic of taboo. Because British and American emphasize competition and independence, if a person were old, he would lose his status in competition. Therefore, people often use senior citizen, elderly people or seasoned men to refer to the old, these two phrases all contain to esteem highly and the meaning for respecting. 2.2 Regional feature The different regions have the differences naturally, the different customs, the different history, the different culture, and these differences embody the localization of language. For instance, bread is a kind of daily food in British, and the phrase “take bread out of someones mouth” means to go off with someones job. And “He is in the bathroom.” American may think he is in the toilet, but English may consider that he is taking a bath. Because the word “bathroom” in British English has the meaning of “bathing”, but in American English it becomes to be a substitution of toilet. And there is another example. An Australian woman married to an American man. They spent their honeymoon in America. And one day, the couple intended to go to a party together. But the bridegroom could not find a suitable full dress. The bride took out a birthday suit that she gave him as a present a few days ago and said: “Why not wear your birthday suit?” However, the whole family were all astonished because in American English, “in ones birthday suit” is the euphemistic expression of “naked”. So this embarrassing situation was resulted from the regional differences in euphemism. 2.3 Contemporaneity Early in mid-century, even are in the category of taboos, but nowadays such words like leg and sexy would never be vulgar. Language changes frequently all the time, new words appears continuously while the old disappears. Euphemism word is too. Such as the euphemism expression of “to be pregnant” summarized by scholars appeared in different time of English development. It illustrates clearly about the contemporaneity of euphemism.She has cancelled all her social engagements.(1856) She is in an interesting condition.(1880) She is in a delicate condition.(1895) She is knitting little bootees.(1910) She is in a family way.(1920) She is expecting.(1935) She is pregnant.(1956) (Ruiyue 2011)2.4 Sociality The language is a kind of social phenomenon, the different society could not exert a same expression method. Even if in identical societys different social class, social stratum, even different profession in the identical social class, the social stratum as well as the quantity of people under different culture background using the euphemism should be also different. For example the word “dead”, in each society, in each culture has the different expression methods. According to concerned scholars statistics, in Chinese the expression of “dead” reaches more than 300, according to the incomplete statistics, in English it probably has more than 230. If in consideration of those tactful parlance of temporary, its amount would be far over this data. Like person believing in Marxist will speak to see a Marx; Person believing in Christianity will say be with God. In brief, the euphemizing would be inevitably applied if one wants to performance in the society. 2.5 Indirect and Implicit The most important feature of euphemism is indirect and implicit. Using euphemism just use its underlying way to express and avoid mentioning things or phenomenon directly which may make people unhappy. And this is the indirect character. Euphemism always gives people hints in a roundabout way. We can infer the deeper meaning and intention from the conversation. For example: -“Dont you think my cooking is wonderful?” The girl asked. -“Are you fishing for compliments.” Her boy friend responded. In the conversation above, the boyfriend not only answered the girl implicitly, and did not embarrass his girlfriend. Similarly, when someone is ill, we always say he is under the weather. If someone is mad, we say he is soft in mind. There is another example: in a few minutes the “madam”, as the current word characterized this type of women, appeared “madam” is always a polite name of women, but here what actually refers to is the brothel madam. This manifested the euphemism to avoid awkward case which is caused by people speaking without reservation. This is just the reason that euphemism enjoys the favor. 2.6 Humorous In the human communication humorous is one kind perfect way to please others. The euphemistic expression is always likely more pleasant than the direct expression, it helps the public face something cruel and the unpleasant reality freely and happily. others also easy to accept. The humorous euphemism can help the people facing the reality with ease. People use “push up daisies” to substitute “be buried” so as to ease peoples fear of death. People changing “be sent into prison” into “live at governments expencse”, can be obviously reduce ones pressure. And “bay window” is a substitution for “belly”, “weekend worries” for “prostitutes”, “to lose ones lunch” for “to vomit”. Nowadays, in some families, husband is afraid of his wife, and this kind of husband is called “hen-pecked husband”. From these we can see using euphemisms makes the language more interesting and humorous.3. Conclusion With the development of the society and economy, the world is getting smaller and we have much more opportunities to interact with people from different countries and cultures. As we mentioned above, euphemism is a linguist phenomenon in all cultures. And euphemism plays an