英语小论文-委婉的艺术.doc

Art of Euphemism

Do you know the origin of the English word “euphemism”? It’s derived from Greek. Prefix “eu-” means “good”, stem “phemism” means “saying; speech”. When they are put together, it means “good speech”. So we can define euphemism as “substituting an inoffensive or pleasant term for a more explicit, offensive one, thereby veneering the truth by using kind words.” It is generally divided into two categories, which are traditional euphemisms and stylistic euphemisms. In some books they are also called narrowing euphemism and exaggerating euphemism .There are various types of euphemism in a more detailed way. I will explain them in the following passages.
Physiological behavior euphemism
Perhaps this kind of euphemism is the most familiar one to people .It is used to avoid vulgarity and to show a sense of elegance For example, there are many kinds of elegant ways to say “WC” such as “restroom”, “convenience”, “men’s”, “ladies’ etc Correspondingly, to go to the WC is expressed elegantly. Westerners often say “to wash one’s hands” “to answer the call of nature” “to ease oneself” “to go somewhere” instead of it. In class, when a student wants to go to the WC, he or she can say “May I be excused?” Besides, we usually refer to sexual act by means of euphemism. We can say “make love” or “sleep together” instead of “have sexual intercourse”. Moreover, anything related to sex isn’t expressed directly. Facts of life substitutes for sex knowledge, adult films substitutes for pornographic movies, call concubine by a good name of trial marriage, and an illegitimate child is called a love child. The great divide , willing woman, gay boy, lost girl can be used to replace divorce, loose woman, male home sexual and prostitute.
Death and diseases euphemism
People are not willing to mention death, the death of our relatives and friends bring us grief. So we often seek some words that will not hurt feelings to express death. Expressions such as pass away, fall asleep, be at rest, go West, be called to God, bite the dust, go to see Mark are all periphrases of death. Of course, there are many other ways to express “death”, I will not recount it here. In addition, the original meaning of “go out” is “get out”, now it also has the meaning of “lose consciousness”. This is a euphemism from the field of medicine, doctors and nurses often use “go out” instead of “die” when a patient loses his life. As far as disease, there are also various periphrases. Disease is a word which is unpleasant to hear, when it is unavoidable to mention, the word “trouble” is a substitute for it such as “lung trouble”, “heart trouble” etc. In modern English, abbreviated character is a substitute for the full name of the disease to reach the effect of euphemism: T.B. means tuberculosis, “the big C” or “long illness” means “cancer”, “flu” means “influenza”, B.O. means “body odor”, “irregularity” means “constipation” etc. “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome”, which is known to us all, is politely called “AIDS” or “social disease” by public. Other venereal disease is generally called “V.D.”. If a person is mad, we say he or she is soft in head or not all there.
Age and features euphemism
In countries like America and England, age is a very sensitive topic, especially for women and old people. In America, “old” has the same meaning of “uselessness”, because when one is old, his career life will end thus losing the source of finance. Actually, old people in America constitute a large part, their social welfare is limited. So most old people are living in a condition of poverty, loneliness and helplessness. Therefore people are afraid of being old, they are more afraid to hear that they are old. Then many words that is pleasant to hear appear. When we refer to “old people”, we say “senior citizens”, “the elderly”, “the mature”, “seasoned man” , “well-preserved man”. Some other indirect expressions, for instance “no longer very young” are more acceptable than “old”. Some Americans even revolt against words like “mid-age”, so expressions like “of a certain age” emerge because of demand. Besides age, People pay much attention to their figure and appearance, but all human beings are not perfect in this aspect. For those people who are not good-looking or have physical defect, we are not willing to mention directly in order to avoid embarrassment. Americans resent fat body, so we use “plump” to describe a fat person. “Skinny” is also troublesome, then we often say a woman is slender or slim if she is thin. When it comes to an ugly person, we say he or she is ordinary, homely, plain or not pretty. When a person who has physical defect is mentioned, no matter he or she is crippled, blind, deaf, dumb or something else, we say he or she is disabled or handicapped in general. Black people are discriminated and oppressed by whites in American history, negro and nipper are both carrying the meaning of offence, so people use colored, person of color, black, race, nonwhite to refer to negro. The most euphemistic way is African-American.
Profession euphemism
In America and England, there is a far cry among social devision of labor. Some people’s jobs are low in social status and such kinds of jobs surely can’t make much money. They are apprehensive that they’ll be looked down upon, so when they refer to their professions, some fair-sounding words are adopted. There are many examples: shoe rebuilder means shoe maker, meat technologist means butcher, utensil maintenance means dish washer, sanitation engineer means garbage man, cosmetologist means hair-dresser, pavement princess means prostitute, dining-room attendants means waiters or waitress, domestic helper means maid, landscape architect means landscape worker, seasonal employee means migrant worker etc. Sometimes profession euphemism is also used to describe some jobs which are not low in social status, for example, we call singer or dancer culture worker. Even a housewife who has no profession at all is called a domestic engineer.
Education euphemism
Euphemism is also widely used in the field of education. Its function is to spurn banality and create a sense of novelty. In Chinese, “teacher” does not necessarily mean a person who teaches others. Similarly, in English, “professor” does not necessarily mean a very erudite person. An ordinary teacher can be euphemistically called a professor or an educator. A principal also has a very gracious name: educational engineer. Regarding evaluation towards students, teachers should consider how to choose proper words that can reflect the facts but won’t hurt students’ self-esteem. In this situation euphemism is indispensable. When a student poor in study is talked about, we may say he or she is working at his or her own level. A teacher can not remark that a student is stupid, slow or lazy. He’d better say that “the student is a bit slow for his age” or “probably he has to devote more diligently to his studies.
God and Demon euphemism
Actually the birth of euphemism can be related to the taboo words in religion. As the development of language, euphemism spread a little wide Because of restrictions of the level of productive forces and scientific conditions, people in early times believed in power of nature. Superstition of demons and gods were serious. They worshiped or even feared of some supernatural power, then taboo phenomenon began. Out of fear of God, the name of God “Jehoval” can’t be mentioned directly. Priest created some tactful names to call gods but not call their real names. “the Almighty, the Supreme Being, Holy One, the Eternal, the creator, the maker, the Savior, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings” are all euphemism of God. Besides, "God," as an interjection, is replaced by "golly," and "heck" replaces "hell." One is too holy to be uttered, the other, too profane.
Political euphemism
Since the euphemisms’ function can reduce the unpleasantness of a term or notion, it is natural that announcements of governments will often resort them to understate the facts. E.g. student unrest can be used to replace student strike. Police action, search and clear, war games are used to substitute for aggression, massacre and war exercise.
Crime euphemism
In the filed of crime euphemism: five-fingers, gentleman of the road, hero of the underground, the candy man are often used to substitute for pickpocket, robber, heroin and drug pusher.
Conclusion
Euphemism plays an important role in our daily communication. Only if we understand the features of English euphemisms, get acquainted with English culture, raise awareness of cultural differences and confirm the context of communication, which includes social context, cultural context and communicative context, can we use English euphemism and catch messages effectively in communication, and overcome the difficulties we encounter in communication.

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