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1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background and Objective
Euphemism is a linguistic phenomenon in communication. Englisheuphemism is commonly used in the daily life of western people forvarious reasons. Michal Flanders, one of the great British comedy teamFlanders and Swann, once said, “The purpose of satire is to strip off theveneer of comforting illusion and cozy half-truth, and our job, as I see it, isto put it back again.” (Neaman and Silver, 1983: 4[1]) This is, perhaps, thebest description of the meaning and role of euphemism. Instead of beingrude and impolite, euphemism is usually considered to be mild andpleasant.The subject of the earliest euphemism was religious. Gods weretreated with respect or fear, so people were often forbidden to utter the realnames of the powers. Consequently, indirect forms of Reference were devised to replace dangerous practices. This forbidden usage we haveidentified as religious can be extended into the domain of taboo which isdominated by the magic power of words. People use euphemisticexpressions because they cannot or should not say the “taboo” words. Noweuphemism is not only used to replace the “taboo” words, but words thatmay cause embarrassment and uncomfortableness alike.As a common linguistic phenomenon, euphemism has been a hot topicfor a long time. Many scholars have studied euphemism from differentangles, such as rhetoric, semantics, pragmatics and sociolinguistics. Recentyears, some scholars have studied euphemism from the mental perspective.Cognitive linguistics is a relatively new branch of linguistics, whichconnects language with human cognition.
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1.2 The Significance of the Research
In the present research, both theoretical significance and practicalsignificance can be achieved.From the theoretical point of view, firstly, as the theoreticalframework of the research is English euphemism and the prototype theory,the thesis may help to enrich the theories of English euphemism, especiallyfrom the formation of English euphemism and the perspective of cognitivemotivations. Secondly, the study provides an empirical research for thetheory of English euphemism, through which the cognitive motivations ofEnglish euphemism can be applied to understand euphemistic expressionsin daily communication. Thirdly, English euphemism is considered as animportant tool for communicating and exchanging the knowledge inlanguage while the previous studies usually focus on the definition,classification and formation of English euphemism, this study shows a newway to classify English euphemism for the convenience of further discussion and proposes the cognitive motivations based on the prototypetheory.
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2 literature review

2.1 Previous Studies on English Euphemism
Euphemism has been studied for many years by different scholars.Hugh Rawson (1981)[2],an English linguist, published his monograph ADictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk. In his book, Rawsonsummarizes the history of euphemistic study and mentioned the definition,classification and features of euphemism. American scholars Judith S.Neaman and Carole G. Silver (1983)[1]wrote a book named Kind Words: ATreasures of Euphemisms, which also has a great value for euphemisticstudy. As in these two monographs, early studies of euphemism mainlyfocus on the lexical level of language. With the development of linguistics,especially the appli本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。