1、on features of english euphemisms 論英語委婉語的特點論英語委婉語的特點 .introduction a. language is a system of characters which came into being from mens common labor, being developed and enriched with the development of men. with the development of our society, a fair number of words are labeled frivolous、vulgar or

2、 at least inconsiderate, and some kinds of languages are forbidden, as different religions、superstitious believes、social customs and other reasons. meanwhile, there were some other languages which are used to take place. in communication, for better maintaining social relationship and exchanging ide

3、as, people have to resort to a new different kind of language, which can make distasteful ideas seem acceptable or even desirable. (張曲,2007:1) this type of language is defined as “euphemism” in linguistics. euphemism has been always played an important part in english and especially it is chiefly th

4、e key point for man in daily communication. as hugh rawson mentioned in his work a dictionary of euphemisms and other doubletalk, “feeling it like it is not (time,1978:164) euphemism abounds in our life. euphemisms are powerful linguistic devices which are embedded so deeply in our language that few

5、 of us, even those on being plainspoken, ever get through a day without using them.” (rawson, 1981:245) b. there has been a great deal of researches about english euphemism because of its importance and prominence. in the early 80s of 16c, george blunt created the word “euphemism” firstly,(吳成花,2007:

6、1) which was defined as “a polite word or expression that you use instead of a more direct one to avoid shocking or upsetting someone.”.(longman advanced american dictionary z, 2003:485) after that, lots of scholars, for example, hugh rawson, judith s. neaman, silver, r.w.holder and so on, have made

7、 a great contributions to the researches about euphemisms. in this essay, ill give an analysis and discussion on traditional euphemisms, further more, im going to make my effort to do some research on different features of english euphemisms. . the production of english euphemisms a. the origin and

8、definitions of english euphemisms when ancient greeks offered sacrifices to god, they used to say good speech, as a result, the english word “euphemism” originally came from greek，with the prefix “eu” which means “good” and the root “phemism” which means “speech”, so the literal meaning is “words of

9、 good omen” or “good speech”. in other words, as it is defined in longman dictionary of contemporary english, a euphemism is the use of a pleasanter, less direct name for something thought to be unpleasant. (longman dictionary of contemporary english, 2003:1277) h. w. fowler, a famous english lexico

10、grapher, explained it in his work, a euphemism is the substitution of a mild of vague expression for a harsh or blunt one; expression thus substituted. (馮翠華, 2003:207)the english euphemism has a long history and most of them came from the bible .what more, there are lots of euphemisms in chaucers th

11、e canterbury tales and in shakespeares sonnets. in the early 11th century, there have been genteel vocabulary and obscene vocabulary. as far as i am concerned, euphemism is a proper language pattern which people created in social communication in order to make the communication effective, and to tak

12、e place of the unpleasant expressions. for example, sometimes, we have to tell a piece of bad news to our friend, however, we have to try to express it in an indirect way or a milder way to regard his feeling and reduce his sadness, so at that time, euphemism can help us solving such a kind of quest

13、ions. thats why nearly all of the scholars say that euphemism is widely used in every aspect of the peoples daily life and greatly welcomed by the people. at the same time euphemism has become an important part in the english culture. b. the classification of english euphemism generally speaking, en

14、glish euphemism can be divided into two types- traditional euphemisms and stylistic euphemisms. by traditional euphemisms, we mean this kind of expression is related to taboo, like illness、dead、sex and other expressions which are rude, hash and impolite if they are showed directly. on the other side

15、, if they are expressed indirectly, they became into euphemism. and stylistic euphemisms, in fact, are a kind of language to show the speakers praise or compliment. american and britain, especially american of the time, often use inflated language to show their politeness, to save from troubles, or

16、to strive for cooperation in daily communication. that is to say, they use some euphemisms to take place of something unpleasant. . features of english euphemisms a. national feature as a tool for human communication, euphemism is a kind of language phenomenon which is very common all over the world

17、. however, different counties、different nations, whose environment、society、living and culture are different, there is no doubt that euphemisms in different languages differ considerably, this reflection is just the national feature of euphemism. zhang yuping、jiang yanping and yu nianhu mention a goo

18、d example in their work, “poor” is a fearful word in english ,which means living a bad life, and meanwhile marks low position in society, as a result, there are lots of alternate words. (張宇平，姜艷蘋，于年湖1998:136) the following example is a section of descriptions about poor by a young woman, which could

19、show us a serious of english euphemisms about “poor”: i used to think i was poor. then they told me i wasnt poor, i was needy. then they said it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy, that i was culturally deprived. then they told me deprived was a bad image, that i was underprivileged. the

20、n they told me that underprivileged was overused, that i was disadvantaged. i still dont have a dime but i have a great vocabulary!”(harper dictionary of contemporary usage) according to the example ,we could find out four euphemisms which synonym with poor、needy(缺乏生活日用品)、culturally deprived(喪失教育機會)

21、、 underprivileged(社會地位低下)、disadvantaged(生活條件差).(張宇平，姜艷蘋， 于年湖,1998:143) a report in the new york times 1973,says that there is an official document to tell people that, when reporting officially american economy ,try to use “low-income ”、“needy”、“underprivileged”、“ disadvantaged” and other indirect e

22、 words to be instead of “poverty”.(譚夢玲,2006:1) as we all know, in 43 a.d. roman empire conquered england and brought latin to england and latin became official language in england. after the norman conquest in 1066, french became the governmental language in england. but french and latin were only s

23、poken by the upper classes, and among the low classes english was spoken. the upper classes held the view that words used by them were superior to those used by the low classes. so they used french or latin words to replace unpleasant english words. later people accepted the view that french and lat

24、in words are more euphemistic than english words. “last week it introduced toute lo france to a lovely young woman named mazarine who is，according to journalist and author philippe alexdre，mitterands 20-year-old enfant damour” (譚夢玲,2006:1) in this sentence, the french word “enfant damour” means ille

25、gitimate child in english. it is not easy for english readers to accept this fact. that is why the writer uses a french word to express this fact. it is natural for people to experience adult, middle age, old age and death. but to westerners, old age means worthless and the old will be looked down u

26、pon or even deserted. so no one would like to admit that he is old. people dread about old age so much that they see the word “old” as a taboo. thus, they try their best to borrow other words to express it, e.g., “the advanced in age”、“the mature”、 “the longer living”、 “seasoned man”、“senior citizen

27、s”etc. in short, western nations have “senior citizens” or “the longer lived” but no “old age”. b. universality universality is something that is well-known and accepted by all of the people. though euphemism is indirect and it doesnt come straight to the point, people can easily infer its deeper im

28、plication. some taboos connected with sex, death, or body functions are replaced by euphemisms. and the public has accepted this kind of use. for when we refer to death, we seldom say “die”. for example, in the sentence “his grandfather passed away.” the phrase“went away” equals to “die”. as far as

29、i am concerned, disease is another fear of man. in primitive society, as the level of medicine was very low, people scarcely survived when they got sick. to them, disease was as dreadful as death. so they didnt speak it directly either. in modern society, although many diseases can be cured, people

30、are still afraid of them. on the one hand, the patient suffers a lot from it; on the other hand, the expense is a heavy burden to the family especially the poor. the common result is that the patient regains his health but the whole family has to live a poor life for many years or even all their liv

31、es. thus, people usually use euphemistic words when they mention the names of disease. for example, the “big c” replaces “cancer” and “social disease” substitutes “acquired immune deficiency syndrome”. c. regional feature as the chinese saying goes, cultures would be different in two villages althou

32、gh they are 10 miles far away from each other. culture、customs would be different and even opposite in two areas, this kind of difference also reflects on euphemisms. most of them tires up with its own special custom, and they mark this phenomenon obviously. take “bread” for instance, bread is a kin

33、d of food in britain family. it is very easy for us to find out some euphemisms about bread. for example, “take bread out of someones mouth” means looting someones job. in china, however, the same meaning of this phrase is change into “搶飯碗”.because in china, the main food is rice, and people used “飯

34、碗”to have rice. so it is very easy for us to find that a same meaning would have different expressions in different areas. another example, “humble” is compounded of “umble” and “numbles”. both umble and numbles are the gut of animals for food. about more than 1000 years ago, only the nobleman and h

35、acendado were able to enjoy the mince pie with deer, but hunter and servant could only have mince pie with umbles. it is a symbol of humble. later, the pronunciation was changed into humble pie. therefore, “eat humble pie” becomes a euphemism to show someone is compelled to make an apology. (胡文仲, 20

36、01:80) there is a story which is a good example to show the regional feature of euphemism. an australian woman married to an american man. they spent their honeymoon in america. and one day, the couple intended to go to a party together. but the bridegroom couldnt find a suitable full dress. the bri

37、de took out a birthday suit that she gave him as a present few days ago and said: “why not wear your birthday suit?” however, the whole family all astonished because in american english, “in ones birthday suit”（ 李國南，2001：251） is the euphemistic expression of “naked”. so this embarrassing situation r

38、esulted from the regional differences in euphemism. d. diversity of lingual region frankly speaking, the ways of using euphemisms are different in different context, whats more, even in the same context, different age、position、education of different people ,the expression would be not the same. a st

39、udy shows that female use more euphemisms than male do. when a lady is going to the washroom, she would say“to powder my noise” or “to freshen up”. when a man is facing the same thing, he would say“ to go to the toilet” 、“ to relieve myself”、“because nature calls” or “to rear”, but to a child, he wo

40、uld say that “ go to the pot and make number one”.(劉寅齊， 2000：36).according to the research, the rate of using euphemisms for women is higher than men. nobleman is higher than common people. the reason is, we can find out easily, women are constrained by society rules, as a result they get used to ex

41、press carefully when communicating with others. noblemen use graceful expressions greatly in order to show their noble. stylistically, the word “die” has hundreds of euphemisms. but in daily communication, people may use “to be gone” or “to be no more”. in obituary, people use “to pass away” or “to

42、depart”. it also has some witty expressions, for instance, “to pop off” or “to kick the bucket”. euphemism is restricted by the context. for example, “on the 14th of march, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think.” this sentence comes from speech at the gr

43、aveside of karl marx .this example involves the passing away of a great man. and the phrase “ceased to think” echoes “thinker”. this euphemism produces a good effect. (李國南,2001:258) e. the feature of times the changing of language depends on the needs and development of our society, therefore, epoch

44、al character could be also called changeable. from a historical point of view, language has been changing incessantly. new words appeared, and old words disappeared gradually. so are euphemisms. a lot of examples could show us how several words to express the same meaning. take the word “watergate”

45、for example, as we all known, it appears in 1972 which has great influence all over america ,even all over theworld. after that, “watergate” is widely used to express different kinds of political events or public scandals. whats more, “-gate” has been used to take place of “affair” or “scandal”. for

46、 example, “debate gate”、“ koreagate”and “monica gate”. (吳越民,2005:73) we could also see this feature from the appellation of “black people”. at the very beginning, black people was called “negro”, then “black people”, at present, they are called“ african american”. this transition is the result of bl

47、ack people rights movement in america. f. indirect and interrelated one of the essential aspects of euphemisms is to avoid mentioning some unpleasant phenomenon or arrangements directly. in another word, to mention these unpleasant indirectly or with a euphemistic way of speaking could be regarded a

48、s the soul of euphemism. therefore, it is very obviously that indirect is one of the main features of euphemism, and is as same as implicit. interrelated, this feature reflects the formation of euphemism, that is, euphemism always gives people hints in a roundabout way. we can infer the deeper meani

49、ng and intention from the context. for example, when someone is ill, we always say “he is not well.” or “he is under the weather.” in western countries, compared with mental work, physical labor is regarded as humble and inferior, in order to reduce the uncomfortable, people always use euphemistic w

50、ays to describe such jobs. this indirect feature is common in a lot of professions. “many previously unwelcome professions have now taken more appealing names”（張維友,2002:196）for example, beautician=hair dresser, elevator=member of the vertical transportation corps, under-take =funeral service practit

51、ioner, mechanic=automobile engineer, dustman=sanitary engineer.(王佳藝, 2003:13) g. obscure feature a great deal of formation of euphemisms made use of obscure in language, to enlarge the meanings of some words. some linguists have attempted to explain euphemisms from the theory of obscure. they pointe

52、d out that, speaker uses some less accurate expressions to take place the exact ones. the obscure feature could gloss over the crude truth. for instance, when we want to say someone is stupid, it is too impolite, so we always say that “he is slow” or “he is unwise”, “depend on others to do his/her w

53、ork” takes place of “cheat in class”. (劉寅齊,2000:38)“slow” and “unwise”, these two words take place of the word “stupid” which could make it more politely. this special feature that creates chances for politicians and businessmen to make use of euphemisms to achieve their selfish goals. politicians a

54、re famous for their ability to play words. they can even turn facts upside down. they try their efforts to persuade people that they live a better life under their leadership to get supports and hold their positions. one of the effective methods they use is the usage of euphemisms. therefore, many e

55、uphemisms about politics can be seen. when reporting war, the practice is to use the obscure feature to reduce peoples abomination of wars, to cover up the intention to war crime, to save from trouble. thats why ,when reading newspaper, we may find “collateral damage” but not “civilian casualties”,

56、“disarm iraq” instead of “attack” or “at war” ,and if the american army met military reverses, it must be“ an adjustment of the front”.(張擁政, 1999:4) h. humorous feature the use of euphuisms could increase the sense of humor of language, and make the conversation between people more interesting. it i

57、s very widely used in euphuisms. “plastered” is often used to describe people who drinks a lot which is originally means spread soil on. the humor of this euphuism embodies the condition of people who drinks a lot, easily make people imagine how the besotted drunkard is. another example, after dinner, british always says to the hospitable host,“ im willing，but mary isnt”. here, stomach is personificated into “mary”, which is interesting and pro