英语委婉语7.doc

The Characteristics and Application of English Euphemism 时间:2008-01-04 18:52来源: 作者:余文欢 点击: 76次 ??? The Characteristics and Application of English Euphemism 1. Introduction Euphemism refers to mild, agreeable, or roundabout words used in place of coarse, painful, or offensive ones. In the beginning was the word, there followed, at an undetermined but one assumes decent interval private, harsh, and dirty words. Invention here being the mother of necessity, the need for euphemism arose. In every society, there are certain things that are not supposed to be speakable or mentioned directly. A fair number of words are labeled0 frivolous, vulgar, or at least inconsiderate. But in communication, for better maintaining social relationship and exchanging ideas, people have to resort to a kind of language, which can make distasteful ideas seem acceptable or even desirable. This type of language is defined a “euphemism” in linguistics and it comes in a variety of forms and is used for a variety reasons. Unlike other figurative language devices, for example, the metaphor of poetry or prose, euphemism aims to surprise and entertain (Lee, 1966:125), strives to avoid offense by means of circumlocution. As a communicative skill---“feeling it like it isn’t(Time, 1978:164) euphemism abounds in our life. Euphemisms are powerful linguistic devices which “are embedded so deeply in our language that few of us, even those on being plainspoken, ever get through a day without using them(Rawson, 1981:245).” Much research has been done on euphemism because of its prominence in language. A lot of great works came into being during the study of euphemism, which lay a foundation for further research. In 1936, in his book The American Linguistic Meneken, fully discussed why hundreds of euphemism had been born and become popular on the basis of American history and social altered background. His book is a valuable legacy for euphemism study. In 1981, British linguist Hugh Rawson complied A Dict