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Title: The Linguistic Requirement of Using Euphemisms of
English and Chinese
Contents
Abstract in Chinese
Abstract in English
Introduction
1.0 Euphemism:
1.1 Definition of euphemism
1.2 The pragmatic features of euphemism
1.2.1 Times
1.2.2 Nationality
1.2.3 Indirectness
1.2.4 Convergence
2.0 The Linguistics of Euphemism
2.1 Face Theory
2.2 Grice’s Co-operative Principle
2.3 Politeness
3.0 Euphemism and Historical Perspective
3.1 Euphemism and Social Class
3.2 Euphemism Motivation
3.2.1 Taboo
3.2.2 Traditional morality
3.2.3 Social Convention
3.2.4 Psychological Factor
3.2.5 Religion
4.0 Diachronic Euphemism Formation
5.0 Communicative function of Chinese and English euphemism
5.1 Evasive function
5.2 Upgrading function
5.3 Cosmetic function
6.0 comparison of euphemism between english and chinese
Conclusion
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Abstract in Chinese
委婉语,作为一种语言现象，它有其独特的来源及构成方法，并遵循一定的发展规律。同时，它也是一种文化现象，折射出中西国家的不同风俗习惯和社会心理。委婉语是人类使用语言过程中的一种普遍现象，是人们谈论那些令人不快或尴尬的事情时所使用的较为礼貌的说法。它不仅是一种社会语言现象，更是一种文化现象。随着社会的进步，人类文明的发展，委婉语始终伴随着整个社会的言语交际过程，且表现出极强的言语交际功能。由于委婉语在英语中应用比较广泛，所以了解委婉语的交际功能对于我们学好英语、进行有效的跨文化交际有很大帮助。
委婉语的产生与语言禁忌（taboo）有关，“塔布”现象包括两个方面：一是受尊敬的神物不便使用；二是受鄙视的贱物不能随便接触。而所谓的语言“塔布”包括两个方面：即语言的灵物崇拜和语言的禁用或代用。为了防止涉及这种灵物崇拜的语言,以及能引起恐惧或让人忌讳的词语出现在言语交际中，从而委婉语就应运而生了。人们在交际中自觉不自觉地运用着“委婉”的表达方式，即用含蓄曲折的词语来代替那些不能直接说的话称为“委婉语"。英汉两种语言的委婉语,既属于语言现象又属于文化现象。虽然由于文化背景不同，英汉委婉语都具有强烈的民族性，但都是用令人愉快的&委婉曲折的话语来表达生活中那些令人恐惧、令人尴尬、遭人厌恶、惹人不快的事物。
英汉两种语言都有大量的委婉语，它们看似相似，究其根本，却是建立在各自不同的文化底蕴上。为揭示英汉委婉语的普遍特征，更好地理解英汉委婉语的特殊性。本文从委婉语的产生根源，在分析英语委婉语语用特征的基础上，对英汉委婉语的进行对比分析，说明语言的一致性和民族语言的差异性。从言语交际的角度看，委婉语本质上体现为一种间接的言语行为，以加深对这一问题的认识。
关键词：委婉语；语用特征；英汉对比分析
Abstract in English
As far as the range of euphemism is concerned, English and
Chinese are somewhat different. The British and Americans
and the Chinese differ and share in taboo because they differ
and share in culture and psychology. And the case is the same
with them in euphemism. On the whole, English euphemism and
Chinese euphemism share more than they differ. Beside, belonging
to different language systems, English and Chinese have differences
in linguistic structures, which lead to their differences
in euphemism formation: each has its peculiarities. On the
other hand, English and Chinese are somewhat similar in linguistic
structure, and have something in common in culture and psychology,
so their euphemisms have similarities in means of formation.
Different as they are in other ways, English euphemism and
Chinese euphemism are the same in principles of formation.
All types of euphemism are created in accordance with three
principles: the distance principle, the relation principle
and the pleasantness principle.
It can be seen from the comparison of the euphemism of English
and Chinese that both the Chinese nation and the western nations
have their own euphemisms. Some of them have similarities
in the aspects that the human beings share in, such as death,
disease, etc; on the other hand, their usages take on comparatively
great differences in other aspects owing to the cultural,
historical and traditional differences of different nations.
This essay, by studying the euphemism in view of contrastive
linguistic of English and Chinese , tries to show the identity
of human being language and the difference of national language
in addition to showing the pragmatic difference of English
and Chinese. From communicative angle, euphemism shows indirect
speech action and has strong communicative function. Euphemisms
as a kind of linguistic phenomenon, has its unique original
and formation, and principles. As a cultural phenomenon, euphemism
reflects different customs and social psychology between China
and western countries.
In the long period of evolution and practice, human beings
have been perceiving and remaking the objective world, and
in the meantime they have been establishing and developing
their own languages and cultures, thus forming various language
patterns and cultural communities. The language patterns and
cultural communities of different peoples differ from, interlock
and overlap one another. The same is true of taboo and its
other face euphemism.
Previously, Chinese scholars studied euphemism mainly in the
perspective of rhetoric, which broadened the concept of euphemism
to the level of sentence and discourse, thus breaking the
limitation of euphemism study to the lexicon on the part of
Western scholars. So euphemism can be defined on two levels:
euphemism in the narrow sense and euphemism in the broad sense.
The former refers to euphemisms restricted to the lexical
level; the latter refers to euphemisms both on the lexical
level and on the non-lexical level (for instance, sentence,
discourse, etc.). In the aspect of classification, euphemisms
are divided into various types by British and American scholars
according to different norms. In term of whether the things
that are expressed are connected with taboo items or not.
Euphemisms can be classed into two kinds; traditional euphemisms
and stylistic euphemisms; euphemisms can be grouped into conscious
and unconscious ones according to whether their original motivations
are remembered or not; in the light of whether they last or
not, euphemisms can be separated into nonce euphemisms and
sustained euphemisms; in line with the content concerned,
euphemisms may be divided into death euphemisms, sex euphemisms,
occupation euphemisms, etc. in a word, different norms can
bring about different kinds of euphemism. In contrast, Chinese
scholars do not classify euphemisms in such a detailed way.
They just simply divide them into two types----general or
public euphemisms and individual euphemisms, or into such
group as a avoid-the-personal-name euphemisms, avoid-bad-luck
euphemisms, death euphemism, avoid-shame euphemism, avoid-dirtiness
euphoniums, etc.
Language is a social, and a psychological product as will.
Although they differ politically, economically, or culturally,
different peoples share in the psychology of taboo and euphemism.
People euphemize for the following three psychological reasons:
to avoid taboo, to be polite and to disguise. These three
aspects, in fact， also display as the three communicative
or social functions of euphemism.
Generally speaking, through the contrastive study of English
euphemism and Chinese euphemism, We can learn about lots of
similarities and peculiarities of the two languages, which
is of considerable value and guidance to our foreign language
learning and teaching, intercultural communication, translation,
dictionary complication and so on.
Key words: euphemism, pragmatic feature, contrastive analysis
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