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摘 要

在社会语言沟通过程中，由于不同的情况和条件，人们不能直接表达一些事，尤其是令他们痛苦的，不愉快的，甚至感到厌恶和尴尬的事情。因此，他们必须使用一些模糊，含蓄，温和，委婉的表达，以达到在适当的情感氛围中用适当的表达来交流思想的目的。英语委婉语是一种社会文化现象，一个社会只要有禁忌现象存在，语言中就有相应的委婉语。委婉语在社会交往中有着广泛的功能，主要是回避功能，礼貌功能，伪装功能和欺骗功能。

关键词：委婉语；功能；应用

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Definition of Euphemism 1

2.2 Findings of Euphemism 1

3. Social function of English Euphemism 2

4. Application of Euphemism in Different Areas 3

4.1 Euphemism about Gods, death, disease 3

4.2 Euphemism about appellations and personal affairs 5

4.3 Euphemism about international affairs 7

4.4 Euphemism about politics and business 9

5. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

Euphemism is a common phenomenon in all language. It involves all aspects in life and plays a significant role in people’s daily communication. It is an effective language expression which aims to realize the expected effects, it is not only needed in people’s social communication, but also an important means of coordinating human relationship in language communication. Euphemism has function of making people express thoughts more smoothly and making communication go in a relaxed way. As English DJ said in his book Fair of Speech-The Use of Euphemism : “Without Euphemism, the world will stop operation because of conflicts and people will feel hostile to each other”. People wish to find an appropriate means to both make mutual communication successful and the two parties pleasant.

Euphemism depends largely on the social context of the speakers and writers where they feel the need to replace certain words which may prove embarrassing for particular listeners or readers in a particular situation. In this paper, I will mainly discuss Euphemism’s Avoid Function, Politeness Function, Disguise Function, Deceptive Function and their application in social communication.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Definition of Euphemism

“A Euphemism is a generally innocuous word or expression used in place of one that may be found offensive or suggest something unpleasant (Webster’s online dictionary)”. So far, the definitions of the Euphemism are a lot, and the followings are two definitions of the Euphemism from the reference books: (1) “using a statement of vague, and  making people feel happy or ambiguous, instead of the expression of an unhappy meaning or with  not enough respect (Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, Stockton and Hartmann et al.)” (2) “an indirect word or phrase that people often use to refer to something embarrassing or unpleasant, sometimes to make it seem more acceptable than it really is.” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s English Chinese Dictionary, the commercial press amp; Oxford University press)

 Euphemism is an idiomatic expression which loses its literal meanings and refers to something else in order to hide its unpleasantness. In the early 1780s, the British writer Gorge Blunt in English for the first times a reference to the word Euphemism, and gave such a definition: Euphemism is a good of favorable interpretation of a bad word.

2.2 Findings of Euphemism

In 1981, the British linguist Hugh Rawson compiled a dictionary “A Dictionary of Euphemism and Other Double - talk”, summed up the dictionary with British, American linguists’ achievements in the study of Euphemism. Domestic scholars beam Dingfang give this book high marks. In 1983, the American scholar Neaman and Sliver published dictionary “Kind Words-A Treasure of Euphemisms”, which describes in detail the origin, history, development and change of Euphemism. In 1985, D.J.Enright published a book in Proceedings “Fair of Speech, the Use of Euphemism”, which collected a lot of Euphemism discussion paper for the future and provided information for the study of Euphemism.In 1991, Allen and Burridge published a book “Euphemism and Dysphemism”, which is very useful for scholars to study English Euphemism from a pragmatic perspective, the book also beccame one of the most frequent Euphemism writings later researchers would refer to since that time.

3. Social function of English Euphemism

Euphemism is broadly used because it has function of making people express thoughts more smoothly and making communication go in a relaxed way. Euphemism is rhetorically an important element of a broad social function; the function can be divided into the avoidance function, politeness function, disguise function and deceptive function. Euphemism can help avoid some embarrassment and displeasure, or show respect for religions, its Euphemism’s avoidance function. In daily communication, using Euphemism appropriately can build a polite and friendly atmosphere and take care of other people’s face; it can also arouse others’ favorable impression. Meanwhile, it reflects the speaker’s politeness and good upbringing. This function is called politeness function. Sometimes, Euphemism is applied to deal with international affairs such as to conceal the nature of some serious wars between nations, it’s called disguise function. Euphemism’s deceptive function is most obviously reflected in commerce. Many merchants use this feature to promote their selling.

4. Application of Euphemism in Different Areas

4.1 Euphemism about Gods, death, disease

In modern society, the taboo is not only declining, but more widely used. For example, a number of physiological phenomena such as illness and death, are often expressed in an indirect, evasive and ambiguous tactful manner instead of unpleasant argument, it intends to talk openly about things that often unpleasant and disgusting, such as sexual taboos, body parts, and religion. Euphemism aims to avoid the taboo of features to help people abide by moral requirements and meet the needs of communication.

Gods can be represented by their features. Like the thunder, it represents God of thunder. Gods can also be named according to their activity scopes, but people always attempt to avoid addressing Gods without an honorific title. This kind of Euphemism more or less has something to do with religion. The Bible regulates that: Addressing Jah Elohim directly is not allowed, people who do that will be deemed as guilty, by Jah Elohim, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”. As a result, there are many appellations about God in English, some adopt phonetic devices such as: Gad, Gosh, Golly, reverent Jew usually chant “Adonai” instead of “Yahweh”; some adopt spelling phonetic like: G-, G-d, or dog; but most appellations are composed through semantic devices such as: king of kings, the Creator/Maker, Our father, the Light of the world, the Eternal, Holy one. There are also many euphemistic appellations of Satan like the Black one Princess of Darkness, Old Nick and so on.

People with friends, colleagues, relatives or in daily interactions or more formal occasions, when it comes to some of the hidden parts of gender behavior, reproduction, droppings or body, they always avoid using foul language saying and use neutral words instead, to make communication both sides to avoid distress. With the continual development of human society, although it is no longer “talking about sex”, but in some formal communication occasions, people say some sex-related words, in addition to part of the medical term, people usually use “make love”, “sleep together” such Euphemism to denote sexual intercourse. “Toilet” is the everyday life of the common language; English “toilet” also has a variety of Euphemism. “May I please be excused”? or “May I please leave the room”? If the argument can also be compared with humor at a familiar friend’s home: “I"m going to do my business” or “I"m going to my private office”. In the work place it can be said: “May I use the facilities”?
   Later, the taboos gradually extended to other areas - some words with ominous meaning that may cause hatred or fear. In daily life, people do not like these words, nor do they want to use or mention a last resort, they use other words in place to eliminate or weaken the intent. For example, deaths often make people feel fear, psychological pain, so there has been the topic of this. On different occasions, different situations for different people died; according to the speaker"s attitude there will be a different number of different Euphemism. Like the Chinese “died”, “death”, “the heart stops beating”, “sacrifice”, “dead”, “passed away”, “victims”, “sleep”, “rest”, “end of life”, “ages”, “heaven” and “to see Marx” and “kick the bucket” and other phrases. And in English there are also many corresponding Euphemism language such as “go/be gone”, “go west”, “pass away”, “be at rest”, “be in/ go to heaven”, “go to sleep forever”, “go to a better place”, “depart”, “decease”, “be with God”, “be no more”, “be no longer with us”, “yield up the ghost”, “be at peace”, “return to dust” and so on, are all Euphemism of death.

For example: (1) His father passed away when he was only five.

(2) He worked until he breathed his last.

Euphemism of “death” are previously been mentioned. Now we talk about Taboo and Euphemism of burying dead people. Dead house is often glorified as funeral parlor. Coffin is often euphemistically described as casket, even box. Grave-yard is known as cemetery or memorial park even sleeping place or resting place. Such Euphemism of death becomes less eerie.

 Meanwhile, the “disease” is also a disgusting thing, in order not to hurt others, people often use Euphemism. For example: replacing the heart disease with “ have a heart condition”; replacing the madhouse with “ a mental health center ” or “ a mental hospital ”; alternate venereal disease with “ a social disease ”.Too many taboos and Euphemism are related to disease. Disease is always painful, so people try to downplay them, try to reduce the patient"s psychological stimulation. People use growth instead of cancer, use mental case instead of a madman, use Hansens disease instead of leprosy and the like. Handicapped is a very sad and low self-esteem word, it is usually replaced by a respected word-disabled. Deaf is often substituted by hearing-impaired, hard of hearing, blind are visually damaged, partially-sighted or people with low visual acuity instead.

Fat and thin are unwelcome words. Thus, the fat man is on the heavy side, stout, fat woman is heavy set, bony, skinny, are very pleasant to the ear, especially for women, so slender and slim are used to replace. A prostitute, in English, is a very shameful occupation since ancient times because this occupation is dirty and illegal, it is always replaced by a more pleasant word and it aims to conceal their essential. In old China, people replace the “prostitute” with the words “Pygmalion”, “dust female”, “female fireworks” and so on. Because at that time many of the women were forced to become prostitutes for living, so these are Euphemism with their sympathy respect. Common Euphemism is working girl, street walker, a call girl, a business girl. Sometimes to be a prostitute is to go on the street or walk in the street instead. These words are misleading; we must pay special attention when using them.

4.2 Euphemism about appellations and personal affairs

In social situations, people always treat people with courtesy, try to reduce or avoid rude words and deeds. Speakers use Euphemism, it would seem polite, but also because the other side of the sensibilities receive care available to each other’s goodwill. For example, the elderly do not like the West saying “old people” because they tend to equal “old” with the word “weak”, “ugly”. So, in English people commonly use “past one"s prime”, “getting on years”; “senior citizens” to replace the longer-lived, “seasoned men” represents the “old people”. In the communication, some are considered dirty, unpleasant, directly indecent words, they must often be replaced by those subtle, pleasant, elegant Euphemism words, indirectly tell what he wanted to say in order to avoid unpleasant engender, to achieve the best communication results. For example, using Euphemism to express physiological behavior of people’s denial is a very common linguistic phenomenon. There are many Euphemisms of toilets in English: Power room (dressing room), restroom (lounge), men or men’s, or women’s / ladies’ (or Ms. Ms. room). When it comes to some physical behavior or biorgans that are not appropriate to say directly, we use Euphemism to resolve such embarrassing moment. Some American women call menstruation as monthly, blue days, period friend. There are also many appellations of pregnant women such as: in the family way, eating for two, in a delicate condition and so on. Meanwhile, the British and American people often substitute “ go to the toilet” with “to wash one"s hand” “to powder one’s nose , “to go somewhere” , “to answer the call of nature” and the like. In Western public places, often you see “Thank you for not smoking here” such notices, which compared to “non-smoking”, has a sort of warning with respect for others, tolerance, full tone that make people willing to follow the advice, and accept the “here can not smoke” requirement. Again, it is obvious in the Western occupation distinction, some people with low social status are humble and very sensitive about their career, and therefore, there are many Euphemism of occupation name. Air-hostess (stewardess) became service manager; undertaker (funeral contractors) is called grief therapist; barber say beautician; and garbage collector (garbage men) became the Solid-waste ecologist (solid waste disposal expert). When talking about some of the service industries or occupations, people also often use Euphemism. Now in industry and services sector some terms are commonly used instead of trade, such as: The hotel industry, the tourist industry of tourism, the clothing industry and garment industry, the woman"s beauty industry beauty method, the garbage industry, junk removal industry, the motor vehicle industry motorcycles industries. People who are engaged in these jobs usually use engineer to replace worker, pipe engineer is actually plumber; packing engineer is factually porter; dwelling engineer, baby sitter; sanitary engineer is garbage collector or dustman; appearance engineer means cosmetologist, and so on. Using Euphemism not only makes speaker look polite but also win others’ affection and recognition because you care for their face. This function embodies mildness.

In communicative activities, both sides of communication want to make communication activities carried out in the environment with gentle tone, they often use Euphemism to show courtesy and respect. For example, President Lincoln at Gettysburg made the famous speech with the use of semantic subtle Euphemism: “We have come to delicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live”. “We have this meeting today is to be dedicated to those martyrs who sacrificed their lives for their country in this part of the battlefield, as their resting place”. Again, Marx and Engels in the tomb of his speech in an article wrote: “On the 14th of March, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back, we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep-but forever. (two three March 14 afternoon moment), the sentence“ ceased to think ”and “gone to sleep” -but forever “ is showing death, the words both fully expressed his great revolutionary proletarian and Marx’s great love and reverence, expressing his deep nostalgia. There are some common application of polite function. Increasing the euphemistic expression through changes in syntax, under normal situations, the American people use some grammatical means to increase euphemistic discourse, in order to acquire politeness function. For example, the Anglo-American people use “excuse me”? “Would you”? Or “Could you please”? to express very polite Euphemism request.

In addition, turning words like but, however, can also be used to form the euphemistic expression, for example: Your dress is good, but it would be better if you could change your trousers instead of a dress. Obviously Euphemism use courtesy and friendliness replace the offense and embarrassment. Affirm strengths first, and then turn the word (for example, but) to propose shortcomings and deficiencies or errors, so that the listener try to figure out their own experience of the speaker’s goodwill and subtle, it can not only point out other deficiencies, but take care of each other’s face, so that the other feel harsh. People use fixed vocabulary to express euphemistic meaning out of respect or because they do not want to hurt the feelings of others or other reasons, some of which may be to weaken the very principle by the specific semantic generalization obfuscate words with vague sense offensive or hurt them emotional thing. In study, we also use a lot of Euphemism, we don’t say“ a stupid student ”, instead, we call him “ a slow learner or underachiever ”, we don’t say directly that some students are below average student, we say “ He is working at his own level”. we say “ He has a tendency to stretch that truth” to criticize those students who always tell lies, these Euphemism can both educate students and protect their self-esteem, therefore reduce the distance between teacher and student, make the class harmonious.

4.3 Euphemism about international affairs

Euphemism is like a layer of beautiful and attractive coat and the ugly hide in it. Since Euphemism often express something in an implicit and roundabout way, sometimes this may cause ambiguity and people may feel confused about them. So, politicians, statesmen always make the most of this feature to mask the reality, exonerate their guilt thus making Euphemism have the disguise function.

In the early 20th century, labor-capital relationship became intense; the strike wave was prevail and turned into a social problem. The press used “industrial climate” to express the strained relationship between labor and capital, “industrial action” to express strike, if the two sides negotiate successfully, the press call it productive; if not successfully, and they call it counter-productive. Factories that are going to bankrupt were described as “phase itself out”. The semantics was general and vague in an elusive extent. Fowler once said wittily that: almost everything-unpleasant things the government may do, is carefully called emergency, therefore extremely vague.

Firstly, in international affairs, Euphemism’s disguise function is reflected incisively and vividly. When it comes to changes of political circles, this kind of Euphemism is extremely ample. To disguise truth, England and the United States politics in every historical period used a lot of Euphemism.

The Watergate scandal in America led to the appearance of many a Euphemism because the official wanted to hide the scandal, containment vs. withholding information, plumber vs. burglar, intelligence-gathering activity vs. the crime of breaking and entering. White House horror vs. government-sponsored crimes. During Reagan administration, tax increases were called Revenue Enhancement. At the same time, English speaking countries can’t see poor nations but backward nations, underdeveloped nations, developing nations or emerging nations. The first class in America’s shipping is deluxe; this second class becomes the first class.

Secondly, the war remolds and distorts language like changing a country’s landscape and history, destroying soldiers’ bodies; wars are the fertile soil of Euphemism. During the Vietnam War, the United States created plenty Euphemism in order to mask their atrocities. They described air bombardment as logistical strikes or close air support; the slaughter of Vietnam people was called wasting the enemy, obvious bombing, burning and custody were disguised as pacification.

In 1983, America’s invasion of Grenada became a rescue mission, the air attack of

Libya became surgical strikes, even surprise attack turned into preemptive strikes. As a result, the horrors and cruelty of war are wiped out completely.

4.4 Euphemism about politics and business

Another reason for people’s using Euphemism is Euphemism has a color of vagueness, so it becomes widely used by politician and greedy businessman. For instance, in modern society, the poor are called the needy, then become the culturally deprived, then the underprivileged, at last the disadvantaged. So it seems that this country is so prosperous without a poor man. I will mainly analyze the application of Euphemism in some international political staff and uncover Euphemism’ function of confusing the public and hiding the truth. Traditionally, Euphemism has a kind of positive effect; it can avoid some embarrassing and indelicate scenes, and embody one’s literacy. However, Euphemism is also a double sword, if used appropriately, can coordinate people’s relationship, if not, will lead public opinion astray. The US government has done many times in the South Pacific hydrogen bomb tests, but they say this will bring mankind disaster for the nuclear test Operation Sunshine. Additionally, expressed coupling, the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs name when using marry up (to marry), represents the line connection means warning and response system when combined with two weapons systems were Little Boy and Fat Man, in this case there are many areas of war and nuclear weapons. In fact, no matter what the names of these things change, as they are the essence of deadly weapons has not changed. Little Boy and Fat Man sound cute, but with the destruction of all mankind energy, therefore, the use of Euphemism from this perspective is hypocritical and immoral. For military men there is only forward, no retreat; only made the victory, not words fail. They tend to say that the defeat of light and scattered action or incomplete success. British and American troops attempt to create a language “resort”，to make war crime in the “ hot spring” of Euphemism die on idle net. In fact, it’s part of the coalition instructions, when the bombers attempted attacks a target, means that they must to any goal. This Euphemism is a “nice” unexpected target. In addition to this, even military weapon has become a Euphemism. WMD—weapons of mass destruction were called Cruise，Scud，Tiny Tim，Honest John，Blood hound，Hound-dog, ICBM—intercontinental ballistic missile, Bullying weapons were described as buker-buster microwave bomb , Tomahawk；Now the most powerful of the nuclear bomb Moab is understood as the Mother of all bombs. The Disguise Function of Euphemism is not only reflected in the political life and war, in other areas of society (crime, drugs, race, etc.) also can be seen everywhere. Delve into this kind of problem, helps to understand complicated language and social contact. Euphemism is also common in the commercial communication. People’s increasingly rational consumer behavior, commodity are increasingly homogeneous, merchants persuade consumers to change their thinking in order to sell their products, encourage them to buy a product or receive certain services, it is necessary to apply persuasive and tempting vocabulary to arouse consumers a variety of pleasant associations. To achieve this purpose, promotional language should pay attention to avoid the use of those words or expressions easily unpleasant, but in a more tactful word or expression to dilute or eliminate unpleasant associations, people are inspired to produce purchase desire, and then take action. Advertising English is a prime example. The vast majority of the language in the adjective compliments the extensive use of vocabulary full of positive significance to bring the happy associations. For example: In the United States, at the time of purchase pantyhose, Ms. often encounters this mark Queen Size, why is it Queen Size? This argument is the business apocryphal, which is based on their meaning to imitate King Size, Queen Size means that pantyhose for Queen Size Women that is prepared for the obese lady. But fat is an unpleasant word, thereby creating a Queen Size, refers both to the Queen Size pantyhose, also refers to the Queen Size women, therefore, Queen Size is a Euphemism for fat. Another example is the verb buy in English tend to be “out of the money”, the bad associations, it is usually replaced with another word or otherwise.

5. Conclusion

Euphemism is broadly used by human beings in the communication. They are outcomes of social language and also reflection of culture.” Euphemism is to the tongue what Novocain is to the gums”. No doubt, the urge to speak euphemistically is a universal feature, but ranging in scope and motive with different circumstances. Euphemism, as a linguistic phenomenon, as well as a figure of speech, really well performs some social functions. They make a lot of contribution to the social communication of human beings. And it will surely appear a new look with the development of society. It is as old as civilization and has long been applied as the means of communication. In communication with others, Euphemism can assist to form an active communicative atmosphere to establish harmonious social relationships and eventually to achieve the communication goals. With the rapid development of modern society, it has become an essential element in people’s interaction. Euphemism, a polite way to express something embarrassing or unpleasant, originates from taboo. From the moment of its occurrence, Euphemism serves to avoid taboos, to show politeness and to conceal feeling.

Works Cited

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