The misuse of euphemism actually destroys language by diminishing its precise meaning and unjustly sanitizing the reality of its significance.
It is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a social and cultural phenomenon. It is a faithful mirror of certain society and culture. With the development of modern society, it has become an indispensable element in people's interactions. Therefore, the proper understanding and utilizing of euphemism may be of vital significance to our learning of language and culture.
The thesis briefly discusses the definition and formation of euphemism, especially the cultural connotation of euphemism from the perspective of the origins and pragmatic function.
The origins for the cultural connotation of euphemisms is derived from its religious belief, social psychology. Finally, it discusses some skills in the translation of euphemism.
All of these are of great help for us to comprehend the cultural connotation of euphemism in different cultures and to translate euphemism much better. They play a positive role in our cross-cultural interaction under the circumstance of globalization.
On one hand, people create all of the linguistic devices; on the other hand, we are greatly influenced by the language we use in our daily life.
Most of the time, we have to admit that the key to successful communication does not lie in what we say, but how we say. Euphemisms, ever since their creation, have gradually developed into one of the most important linguistic devices and have played a significant part in our social life.
They are embedded so deeply in our language that few of us, even those who pride themselves on being plainspoken, ever get through a day without using them. To some extent, actually, euphemisms are the basic language of the society. As a very common but powerful linguistic phenomenon, euphemisms have been arousing the interests of those linguists from different perspectives.
At the very beginning, researches into euphemisms could only be found in some books in which most of the researches into them were rather superficial.
It was not until the recent decades that euphemisms begin to be combined with some other subjects. The cultural connotation and translation of euphemism play an important role in euphemism study, since the translation of euphemism is closely related with its cultural connotation, which is rather complex.
Therefore, in order to translate euphemism much better, we have to get a further understanding of Chinese and Western cultures.
The analysis of euphemisms is made in this thesis from the two perspectives: This thesis aims to help people to understand and translate euphemisms much better. As a special mode of expression, euphemism has been defined differently in different books. Here are some definitions: The evolution of these differences proves that researches on euphemism has been deepened and expanded as time goes by.
In spite of the differences in wording and perspective, these definitions do not differ from one another in the essential sense. Light reading means that when you meet something you are too shy to mention, usually you may say it in a low voice.
Phonetic distortion refers to the changing of a sound in the word for the purpose of euphemizing. Usually crude or inauspicious words can become acceptable by using these devices.
English euphemism includes the following sources: Combination of the Initial Letters: By combining the initial letter in every word altogether, and then capitalizing them, thus forming a new expression.
By adding prefix to express the negative meaning in a roundabout, indirect, implicit-sounding way. They can be achieved through such figures of speech like understatement, circumlocution and so on. Understatement conceals the severity of things by acknowledging part of the truth.
Usually tabooed subjects are not spoken of openly. Metaphor is a common kind of circumlocution in which a lot of indirect terms appeared.
So, voice plays a vital part in the use of euphemisms.As language is the keystone of culture, reflecting and reshaping culture in a sense, euphemism can be regarded as a mirror of language, or even a mirror of culture, reflecting and influencing the culture in multiple and complex ways.
The intellectual exploration of phenomenological and psychiatric discovery that has flowered in the Caribbean in the period of political independence from British colonization is a reflection of. Euphemism is commonly understood as “the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.” When done well, it typically involves a delicate intertwining of metaphor, understatement and abstract phraseology.
On the Pragmatic Study of Euphemism and Its Application for English Teaching. Wu Shuang. School of Foreign Languages. euphemism is not only a full reflection of a person‟s opportunities to learn about foreign cultures and foreign values, which at the same time, become the barrier for.
Euphemism. its characteristic of times can also be reflected in the variation in the signifier of the same objective phenomenon with time.3 Strong Characteristic of Times Euphemism is the language reflection of Social culture. Here in this paper.
“the device”. Culture, embodied by the language system, is closely related to euphemism. Therefore, as an indispensable and natural part of language, euphemisms are often culture-loaded and carry cultural information.
Cultural differences between the English and Chinese language and their impact on euphemism are also addressed as a complementary study.