刍议英语委婉语的起源及其社会交际功能 [3]
论文作者:游芳颖论文属性:短文 essay登出时间:2009-04-06编辑:黄丽樱点击率:7664
论文字数:4356论文编号:org200904061058157169语种:英语 English地区:中国价格:免费论文
关键词:[ origincommunicative functionevasioncosmetic functionpoliteness起源交际功能避讳礼貌掩饰
he Goodman, Jesse, Old boy, Our father, Lord of lords, King of kings, the Light of the world, etc.[6]
From the above mentioned, we can find that religion brings many euphemistic terms in the religious matter, especially the naming and addressing of God to the language.
3.2 The racial and national origins of English euphemism
It is known to all, the phenomenon of racial discrimination is deeply rooted in America in which “equal opportunity” is flattered by American white people as an equal right enjoyed by everyone. Due to the pressure of social public opinion, although some whites discriminate the black from their heart, they will not expose this kind of prejudice in public. Meanwhile, few people dare to humiliate and persecute blacks publicly for no reason at all. In other words, the way of discrimination becomes tactful. There are many euphemisms emerging for this reason. In the 1930s, ‘nigger’ is still a neutral noun in England, and has no meaning of humiliating blacks. But since this word has the obvious meaning of discriminating the blacks, most of people in England and Americans use some other euphemistic words, such as “colored black” instead. When talking about some other races, it does not often use the direct words that are related to color. People often use some euphemistic expression, such as the geographic name.
3.3 Historical, literary and political origins of English euphemism
From the time the Normans conquered England in 1066, English has emerged many euphemisms. At that time, the main reason to use euphemism is that the language used by the conquered is often disparaged, and is thought as gross language. The upper class surely doesn’t want to lower their status to use such words. In order to avoid using such gross words, they tend to use “the elegant words”, which originated from Latin. And these words were mixed into English gradually.
There are also many euphemisms in literary works. For example, in Hamlet, Shakespeare use the expression “The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns”(从来不曾有一个旅人回来过的神秘之国) to express his great sympathy for Hamlet.[7] The famous American writer Mark Twain use “release” to express “die” in his work The Adventure of Tom Sawyer. Besides, politics is a fertile area for the appearance and growth of English euphemism, which is cosmetic in expression but deceptive in nature. Euphemisms of this kind are always consciously and deliberately. The cosmetic euphemism can be easily found in American English. Government’s discussion of the Vietnam War was saturated with euphemisms. Villages burned and inhabitants imprisoned were ‘Pacifications”; the war itself was not a war but a “conflict”, the “bombing” becomes “logistical strike” or “close air support”, and “killing” becomes “wasting the enemy”. These euphemisms are used to deceive and to hide the dirty business of war. [8] The use of such political euphemisms helps government to beautify the action and prevent people from taking any anti-government action. So in order to satisfy the political needs, many euphemisms come to exist.
4.The social communicative function of English euphemism
From the perspective of language communication, euphemism functions to avoid taboos, to show politeness and conceal feelings. Thanks to euphemism, it is easy for people to accept the things that are likely to make others feel embarrassed or unhappy. It is people’s general character to express their ideas as mildly and tactfully as possible. E
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