浅析英语委婉语功能.doc

AbstractEuphemism is a common linguistic phenomenon in global culture. It plays an important part in our daily communication. As an indispensable and natural part of English language, English euphemism has aroused wide interest among many linguists and scholars from different perspectives. Euphemism is deeply rooted in every aspect of life and is developed with the advancement of society. English euphemism is a mirror of Western culture and social psychology. It has a distinct culture color from the moment it was born. Euphemism undoubtedly reflects the inner relationship among the cultural tradition, social values and the form of language. This essay first briefly introduces the characteristics of the euphemism, namely, universality, indirectness, nationalism and regionalism. The functions of euphemism on politics and war are to disguise the serious social problems, to cover political scandals, to distort the facts and to present a false picture of peace. The communicative functions of euphemism are to avoid embarrassment, ease the situation or behave politely.Key words：euphemism; function; disguise; avoidance; religious; polite 中文摘要委婉语是一种常见的全球语言现象。它是我们日常沟通的重要组成部分。作为英语不可或缺的的一部分，英语委婉已引起许多语言学家和学者的广泛关注。委婉扎根于社会生活的各个方面，并与社会发展同步。英语委婉语是西方文化与社会心理的反映。从它诞生时就有独特的文化色彩。委婉无疑反映了文化传统之间的内在关系，社会价值观念和语言形式。本文首先简要介绍了委婉的特点：普遍性，间接性，民族性和区域性。委婉语在政治和战争中使用是为了掩盖严重的社会问题、政治丑闻、歪曲事实、提出和平假象。委婉语在交谈中使用是为了避免尴尬，缓和局势和表现得得体。关键词：委婉；功能；掩饰；避讳；宗教；得体Chapter One Introduction1. Introduction:Euphemism is a common linguistic phenomenon in the global culture. It plays an important part in our daily communication. As an indispensable and natural part of English language, English euphemism has aroused wide interest among linguists and scholars from different perspectives. Euphemism, a universal language phenomenon, has special communicative functions in social life. A good knowledge of euphemism would help improve the effect of social communication.The word “euphemism” comes from Greek, “eu” means good or well, the root “pheme “means speech, and -ism is a noun suffix, which means the result, so it literally means speaking well of, good speech or words of good omen.1.1 The Definition of Euphemism:Euphemism has been defined differently in different books. There are some definitions cited as follows:(1) Euphemism is substitution of mild or vague or roundabout expression for harsh or direct one. (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1982, 7th edition)(2) Euphemism is substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant.” (Websters New collegiate Dictionary 1973)(3) Euphemism is a polite word or expression that people use when they are talking about something which they or other people find unpleasant or embarrassing, such as death or sex. (Collins, 1987)(4) Euphemism is used as an alternative to an expression, in order to avoid possible loss of face: either ones own face or, through giving offense, that of the audience, or of some third party. (Allan & Burridge, 1991)All the definitions above share the same point, that is, to give a better sounding name, to soften the shock of reality or, sometimes, to cover up dreadful facts. There are some things in life that should not be stated bluntly or truthfully. There are times when it is necessary, even wise, not to “call a spade a spade” but to use some better-sounding name. These harsh, blunt, unpleasant, or offensive things that we have to deliberately avoid mentioning directly for fear of hurting other peoples feeling. And what are the better-sounding names? The “gilded words”, as H.L. calls them.1.2 The Important Role of Euphemism:As a figure of speech, euphemism plays an important part in communication. Robert Burchfield, for many years the editor of The Oxford English Dictionary, once observed that “a language without euphemisms would be a defective instrument of communication” (qtd. In Cullen Murphy the E Word, 2000)”. Enright, D.J., the famous English critic of literature, once said, “Without euphemisms, the world comes to a halt because frication and resentments would rise among people.” This remark illustrates that euphemism plays an important role in the maintenance of social relations and interpersonal relationships. Euphemism is a common phenomenon of all languages and a mirror of social psychology. It is so widely used in our daily life that it has aroused peoples interest.Chapter Two the Characteristics of Euphemism2. The Characteristics of Euphemism:2.1 UniversalityAlmost all cultures seem to have certain notions or things that people try to avoid mentioning directly. That is, nearly every culture has its own taboos. When such a notion or thing has to be referred to, people would like to substitute a different term or phrase that sounds better. “So we have euphemism in almost every language.” Euphemism is so widely spread in the languages of the world that it penetrates into people of all walks of life. The American scholar Hugh Rawson once said, “Euphemism is so deeply rooted in the language that almost everyone uses it everyday, including those who claim to be the most straightforward.” And the meanings of some words is universal, for example, there are hundreds of euphemisms about “death” in both Chinese and English.2.2 IndirectnessHe Zhaoxiong once pointed out, “People sometimes convey their ideas in a roundabout way instead of expressing them directly.” This phenomenon is called indirectness. The speaker believes that what he says, which is based on the context, makes sense to the listener, so he/she speaks in another way to avoid embarrassment or be polite. For example, to piss is usually expressed as go to the bathroom.2.3 Nationalism and Regionalism: A language contains the characteristics of the national culture and embodies a nations cultural identity, cultural consciousness and its different ways of thinking. Deferent region has a different history, customs and taboos, thus these differences would certainly be reflected in euphemism. Differences in attitude towards old age in the East and West are a typical example. Chinese and English have different feeling about “old age”. Chinese is proud of being old. In Chinese there are few euphemisms for old. People show more respect to old people and they are thought to be more experienced. For instance, laomashitu(老马识途)，laozong(老总)，zhaolao(赵老), etc.Lao (老) is not a taboo in Chinese. The speaker can show his affection.On the contrary, the American are afraid of becoming old. They want to act, feel and look young. In their opinion, the old people live a lonely life and are no longer energetic. Old people are seemed as a social burden on economy, so there are a lot of mild and roundabout expressions to show the concept of “old age”, for example, “the mature”, “senior citizens”, etc.Chapter Three The Applications and Functions of English Euphemism3. The applications and functions of euphemism:3.1 Disguise Function:It is obvious that those euphemisms used by the ordinary people are meant to soften harsh reality, but those used by politicians may aim at deceiving the public.3.11 In terms of political scandals:Since euphemisms often express something in an implicit and roundabout way, sometimes this may cause ambiguity and people may feel confused about them. So, politicians, statement and businessmen always make full use of this feature to mask the reality, exonerate their guilt. The primary feature of euphemism here is to numb the public without telling a downright lie yet to get an almost equally desirable response.There are a lot of euphemisms produced during the “Watergate scandal” by president Nixon and his colleagues of the 20th century. For instance, “wiretapping or bugging” is referred to as “electronic surveillance”, “eavesdrop” as “intelligence-gathering”, “the scheme of eavesdrop” as “scenario”, and even “the scandal” became “event”.After the Watergate scandal in 1972, the suffix “-gate” is used to refer to any similar political events or big scandal instead of using the word scandal or affair directly, for example, the Monica gate or Clinton gate.Politics is a fertile area for the growth of euphemisms，which are cosmetic in expression but deceptive in nature. Euphemisms of this kind are always used consciously and deliberately. Euphemisms used in political issues are mainly seen in the internal and international aspects. 3.12 In terms of war and military action:In the field of politics and war, using euphemism has become a strategy to lubricate the communication and even aims at deceiving the public. Besides, war is a fertile field for euphemism. Governments need euphemisms to persuade people to put up with the suffering of war.The following is taken from The New York Times reports on March 25, 2003:“The $60 billion price tag for the 1991 Persian Gulf War was shared among many countries in the U.S.-led coalition against Saddam. It is unclear how many nations would join in and pick up some of the cost of another military campaign in Iraq.”At that time the international situation was that the international community proposed peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis, but there was a big difference between the permanent members of the Security Council. The first sentence reviewed the fact that the Western countries took part in the Gulf War actively, while support for the Iraq war in 2003 was little. To cover up this fact, the news reported in an ambiguous way: “It is unclear how many nations would join in and pick up some of the cost of another military campaign in Iraq.” This is a manifestation of euphemism.After the outbreak of the Iraq war in 2003, we can hear the frequent words in VOA like disarm Iraq, and take military action against Iraq. If you disarm people, you take away their weapons, which means to deprive of weapons. While the meaning of military action is fighting in a war. Using disarm and take military action is to avoid the use of words like at war, attack, invasion, aggression and other sensitive ones, reaching the effect of softening the harsh reality.The war that the U.S. Government launched was called Iraqi Freedom, which was not only inconsistent with international law but contrary to humanism. The government claimed that the war was for justice and peace and called the occupation as liberation, presenting him as a liberator. The words totally disguised the bloody and cruel war and distorted the truth, therefore providing a good reason for the invasion. In the international military field, the use of large numbers of euphemisms is to conceal the truth. Nicknames for deadly weapons and WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) make them sound less terrible. For example, the U.S. Government used the name “Operation Sunshine” to refer to the experiments it conducted with the hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific. It is obvious that the government was trying to cover up his naked, bloody war crimes.There are still many other examples, like, attack is replaced by active defense, surprise attack is termed preemptive strikes, murder is for executive action and air operation and ground operation in the Gulf War means aerial bombing and ground attack.3.13 In terms of social problems:With the development of life, the use of euphemism has changed greatly in modern society. The motivation for the use of euphemisms sometime is not simply to avoid embarrassment or care for the feelings of the listener, but to cover up some social problems or to deceive the public. In order to maintain his ruling, the government uses a range of euphemisms to ease the situation or disguise the contradictions. There is a large gap between the rich and the poor in the western world, especially in the U.S. However, we can hardly hear the word poor in the speech or in the parliament for it is replaced by needy. A more popular way of saying poor is under-privileged. These terms avoid the word poor subtlety and give others the impression that there are no poor people in the western world, only the disadvantaged or the underprivileged. 3.2 Avoidance Function:The function of euphemism as avoidance is to avoid using taboos, enabling speaker to talk about taboo things freely.3.21 In terms of death: The English language contains numerous euphemisms related to dying, death, burial, and the people and places which deal with death. The practice of using euphemisms for death is likely to have originated from the magical belief that speaking the word death was to invite death; while to draw Deaths attention is the ultimate bad fortune a common theory holds that death is a taboo subject in most English-speaking cultures precisely for this reason.One of the most wellknown examples is from Engels remarks. When referring to Marxs death, he wrote: “He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleepbut for ever.” We feel that here “gone to sleepbut for ever” is certainly more expressive and appropriate than the blunt and harsh “death”. And to different people, there are corresponding euphemisms for death. If a friend or a relative dies, people may say “go to a better world, go to heaven, or pass away”, etc.; If a soldier dies in the battle, people will say “answer the last master”; and to speak of the death of the saint, people use “safe in the arms of Jesus” or “be with God”. Some Christians often use phrases such as gone to be with the Lord or called to higher service (this latter expression being particularly prevalent in the Salvation Army) or graduated to express their belief that physical death is not the end, but the beginning of the fuller realization of redemption.Orthodox Christians often use the euphemism fall asleep or fallen asleep in the Lord, which reflects Orthodox beliefs concerning death and resurrection.Contemporary euphemisms and todays Euphemisms for death tend to be quite colorful, and someone who has died is said to have died, passed on, checked out, kicked the bucket, bitten the dust, turned their toes up, bought the farm, fallen off their perch, gone west, gone to California. When buried, they may be said to be pushing up daisies, sleeping the big sleep, taking a dirt nap, checking out the grass from underneath or six feet under. There are hundreds of such expressions in use. Of course, this list is not at all complete. As for the less common ones, there are such expressions as Shakespeares “to shuffle off this mortal coil” and “to end it all”, and Mark Twains “release” in his The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.3.22 In terms of diseases and disabilities:People yearn for health and fear of specific disease and every sort of disability. Therefo