On the Study of Euphemism between English and Chinese英语专业毕业论文.docx

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1、On the Study of Euphemism between English and Chinese Abstract: Euphemism is not only a lingual phenomenon, but also a cultural and social phenomenon. It was mild, agreeable, or roundabout words used in place of coarse, painful, or offensive ones. Since English euphemisms play an important role in s

2、ocial communication, they worth careful and thorough study. So the comparative study of work between English and Chinese euphemisms is made in this paper. This thesis is composed of five parts with Chapter Two and Four as its core: The second chapter focuses on the basic understanding of euphemism.

3、The third chapter discusses that pragmatic function in the daily life. The fourth chapter talks about the application of euphemisms in different fields. The last chapter concludes the whole thesis. To know these could help us improve our language communicative ability. Key Words: euphemism; taboo: p

4、ragmatic functions: application1. Introduction Language communication is an important method to maintain social relationship, so people often use the indirect or pleasant expressions in the place of those considered unpleasant, rude or offensive in communication. Euphemisms have existed for a long t

5、ime. It is like a mirror, reflecting the values, aesthetic conceptions and moral concepts in some extent. Euphemism plays an important part in social communication. It is like lube that avoids hurting the other partys feeling. It oils the human relationship in communication and helps to save face of

6、 communicators. If people make full use of euphemism, it can accelerate and facilitate human communication. Euphemisms do exist no matter in Chinese and in English. The western scholars began to euphemism phenomenon was studied. Indeed, the appearance of euphemism results from many fearful things, m

7、ost of them concerning belief and religion. In old times, people lived in a very low level, so they failed to understand the essence of some natural phenomena, they became superstitious about supernatural even natural power, or the existence of devils and gods they were too fearful to mention object

8、s related to devils of gods. “when people were unwilling to or dare not say something unpleasant, they had to shun them by using pleasant wordings, to imply something others were reluctant to mention by metaphors （Summers, D & Gadsby, A 1998:243）,” and to prompt something both speakers and listeners

9、 knew but refused to say by indirect expressions, thus creating a lot of euphemisms which last up to date.As an important rhetorical and means of expression of euphemism in English and Chinese, it is used frequently in daily communication. In order to reveal the universal law of euphemism, a better

10、understanding of the language of euphemisms particularity, this paper from the pragmatic approach to euphemism function proceed with, on the English and Chinese euphemism expression methods were compared and analyzed. This paper mainly from the definition of euphemism, euphemism, euphemism compositi

11、on principle of form, pragmatic function between English and Chinese euphemism and the detailed explanation, and make a reasonable conclusion. Euphemism in English is widely used, so understanding the communicative functions of euphemism for us to learn English, carry out effective cross-cultural co

12、mmunication are of great help. English and Chinese euphemisms have similarities, and differences. Comparative study of euphemism in addition to reveal its universality and particularity, the foreign language teaching, translation and other applied language subject also has a positive guiding signifi

13、cance.Therefore, this paper will make a comparative study of English and Chinese euphemisms from many aspects in order to help those who use English or Chinese in cross-cultural communication to avoid misunderstanding and embarrassment caused by cultural difference.2. General understanding of euphem

14、isms2.1 The origin of euphemism“Euphemism is the linguistic reflection of social psychology and a product of social and cultural environment.”1 “In western nations, the usage of euphemisms in early times originated from religion or admires and dread of gods.”2Its earlier emergence had a close relati

15、on to language taboos and religion. In ancient society, as the level of productivity and science was very low, people failed to explain the essence of some natural phenomena such as lightening and thunder. They came to believe that there were some supernatural powers, or the existence of devils and

16、gods that controlled their lives and even the whole world. They dared not to mention the names of the devils and gods directly, just as the idiom goes “Speak of the devil and he appears.” Thus, language taboos came into being. To find a solution to this problem, people used other names that is, euph

17、emisms to substitute the names of those things they feared in circumstances that they had to speak of them. Because of the usage of euphemisms, people felt that they were somewhat distant from what they were afraid of and their safety, happiness, health and good luck were guaranteed. Though it is a

18、rather old religious custom, it still exerts a strong influence on modern western nations.2.2 The definition of euphemismVerbal communication is one of the most important methods people apply to maintain the social relationship. In order to avoid the offensiveness in communication, people usually us

19、e some polite or pleasant words to replace the rude or embarrassing ones. Therefore, euphemism emerges. Euphemism is a common linguistic phenomenon in all cultures, it takes an very important role in peoples daily communication. Euphemism is originated from the Greek. Its prefix “eu” means good, ple

20、asant, and its root “pheme” means speech. Thus, euphemism literally means “to speak with good words or in a pleasant manner” (Neaman and Silver, 1990:32). According to Allan and Burridge (1991:11), the definition of euphemism is: A euphemism is used as an alternative to a dispreferred expression, in

21、 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) the mild or vague expression substituted for a harsher or more direct one. (Pocket

22、 Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1996) (2) the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh or blunt. (Websters Dictionary of American English, Random House, Inc.1997) (3) (an example of) the use of a more pleasant, less dir

23、ect name for something thought to be unpleasant. (Longman English-Chinese Dictionary of Contempo- rary English, Longman Group UK Limited, 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 ta

24、lk about, for example, sex, the human body or death. (Collins Cobuild English Dictionary, SFLEP, 2000)(5) Rhetorical trope: a pleasant replacement for an objectionable word that has pejorative connotations. (Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, FLERP, 2000) In China, Chen Wangdao (1997)

25、 defined euphemism as a figure of speech in which roundabout and implicit words and expressions are used to substitute direct expressions to hint the meaning. “Weiwan (委婉)” is a figure of speech in Chinese. It is also called “wanqu (婉曲)” or “wanzhuan(婉转)”. Another figure of speech in Chinese is call

26、ed “bihui (避讳)” or “huishi (讳饰)”. The combination of the figure of speech “weiwan (委婉)” and the figure of speech “bihui (避讳)” in Chinese is equivalent to the figure of speech “euphemism” in English (Li Guonan, 2001:190) 2.3 The classification of euphemismAccording to different standards, euphemism c

27、an be classified differently. Here, several kinds of classification of euphemism will be introduced.2.3.1 The Positive and the Negative EuphemismsAccording to Hugh Rawson (1981), from the perspective of semantics, euphemism can be divided into two types: the positive and the negative. “The positive

28、euphemisms inflate and magnify the word meaning, making the euphemized seem altogether grander and more important than they really are” (Rawson, 1981: 1). They include many fancy occupational titles, which save the egos of workers by elevating their job status. Negative euphemisms, which have close

29、relation with tabooed words, are also called “traditional euphemisms” (Enright, 1985). Many tabooed subjects, such as sex, disease, death, excretion, bodily function, etc, which are also tabooed subjects, should be euphemized in this way. 2.3.2 The Unconscious and the Conscious Euphemisms According

30、to whether people remember their original motivations or not, euphemisms also can be divided into “unconscious euphemisms” and “conscious euphemisms” by Hugh Rawson (1981).The unconscious euphemisms refer to those, which have been used so long that hardly does anyone remember how they came into bein

31、g. For example, the word cemetery (from the Greek word for sleeping place or dormitory) serves as a euphemism for graveyard. The word indisposition originally meant incapacity to deal with something, and its euphemistic meaning is slight illness or ill health. Conscious euphemisms are different. Whe

32、n employing this kind of euphemisms, people not only know their original meanings but also understand their implied meanings. For instance, if somebody calls, “Here comes the sanitation man.” everybody understands that sanitation man refers to garbage man and it is time to get out the garbage cans.2

33、.4 The features of English and Chinese euphemismEuphemism is rich and diversified, which can reflect the features of a language. In this sense, euphemism as a kind of polite language is characteristic of indirectness, fuzziness and pleasantness (Tang, 2006:33). This chapter tends to generalize the f

34、eatures of euphemism from the above-mentioned perspectives.2.4.1 Indirectness The nature of euphemism lies in its indirectness, which can be explained by one of the formative principles of euphemism, that is, the principle of distance. To achieve successful communication, the most effective way in c

35、onversation is to widen the distance between signs and their referents. For example, “room-care specialist” is a euphemism for “maid” and “answer the natures call” is a euphemism for “urinate”. However, the distance between the used words and the real referents cannot be widened unlimitedly. If the

36、employed euphemistic word is excessively indirect, it will lead to misunderstanding or miscommunication. For instance, if you describe a lame man with polio as “He is not good in health”, people may not understand your meaning completely since the distance between the euphemistic expression and the

37、real referential meaning is too wide. But if you change it as“He is handicapped in legs”, the result is completely different. 2.4.2 FuzzinessAs for the euphemistic phenomenon, fuzziness is widely acknowledged as one of its typical features. By using euphemistic expressions, people can make their int

38、entions or meanings more generalized and vague, therefore avoiding upsetting or embarrassing others. For example, in a cocktail party if you tell a gentleman “Your fly is open” directly, the two parties will all feel embarrassed undoubtedly and thus it tends to go against the successful communicatio

39、n. Nevertheless, if you can convey the meaning vaguely and drop him a hint like “You have lost your license”, the result of the communication must be completely different. Besides, euphemisms about “poverty” “crime” “education” and “war” can also be used to explain the fuzziness of euphemism. Specif

40、ically speaking, teachers are not likely to express that “She is stupid or obtuse” but “She is a bit slow for her age”. 2.4.3 PleasantnessHere, “pleasantness” does not refer to the superficial meaning of the word. It not only refers to the pleasantness to the human body, but also the pleasantness to

41、 the human mind. To satisfy peoples psychological needs for pleasantness, many euphemistic expressions are coined recently with the development of the society. “Indeed, the entire lexicon of working world reveals an overwhelming tendency to make work seem respectable and meaningful” (Neaman & Silver

42、, 1983:291). For instance, “tree-surgeon” is used instead of “tree-trimmer”; “beautician” is used for “barber”. Besides, the replacement of “business cabin” for “the third cabin”, “love child” for “illegitimate child”. Those all present people with a better association therefore creating pleasantnes

43、s in interpersonal communication.3. Pragmatic functions of English and Chinese euphemism 3.1 Avoid tabooTaboo is the main psychological basis of the emergence of euphemism. Euphemism is the avoidance of the unpleasant, inelegant things. A famous sociolinguist Mr. Chen Yuan once said: Generally speak

44、ing, the coming into being of euphemism all begins from taboo. From the origin of euphemism, we can see that taboo is the first function of euphemism. Euphemism has been using for a long time, and it is closely related to taboo. In fact, euphemism dates back to the language taboo in the early period

45、 of human civilization. When people try to avoid and give up taboo words, they have to find another word to replace this vacancy at the same time. Hence, people created euphemism.” There are some taboo things, such as birth, death, funeral, sex, nakedness, defecation, and urinate. If they are expres

46、sed directly, they are called taboo words and the feelings they give us are vulgar, crude and harsh, whereas if they are expressed indirectly, they are called euphemism, and the impressions they made on us are elegant, implicit and polite. The evading function of euphemism also works today. Some tab

47、oo notions cannot be easily removed from peoples mind. Though science and technology are highly developed today, the word “death” is the taboo words to all nations. Thus there are a lot of euphemisms related with it. “Such as pass away, answer the final call, be asleep in Jesus, be safe in the arms

48、of Jesus, be at rest, be called to God, be home and free, be in Abrahams bosom, cross the River Jordan, final sleep, go home, go to meet ones maker, go to ones own place, join ones ancestors, join the great majority, return to dust, with God, be no longer with us, pay the debt of nature, tick the bu

49、cket, etc.” “Among those, one-way-ticket is the synonym of die. It reflects the speakers experience of life. Life is just like travel. People set out to travel, but when they arrive to the termination, they cannot go back. In the past, people often used graveyard to express the place where the dead sleep peacefully. But the associations it gives us are horrified and gloomy. So now, people use funeral home and memorial park to replace them. In such a way, it com