Outline
1. Introduction
2. The origin, definition, and sorts of English euphemism
2.1 The origin of English euphemism
2.2 The definition of English euphemism
2.3 The sorts of English euphemism
3. Two theories of pragmatic and English euphemism
3.1 The cooperative principle
3.1.1 Quality Maxim
3.1.2 Quantity Maxim
3.1.3 Relevant Maxim
3.1.4 Manner Maxim
3.2 The cooperative principle and English euphemism
3.2.1 Euphemism Violating Quality Maxim
3.2.2 Euphemism Violating Quantity Maxim
3.2.3 Euphemism Violating Relation Maxim
3.2.4 Euphemism Violating Manner Maxim
3.3 The politeness principle and English euphemism
3.3.1 The politeness principle
3.3.1.1 Tact Maxim
3.3.1.2 Generosity Maxim
3.3.1.3 Approbation Maxim
3.3.1.4 Modesty Maxim
3.3.1.5 Agreement Maxim
3.3.1.6 Sympathy Maxim
4. Conclusion
4.1 Summary
4.2 Limitation
Bibliography
The Study of English Euphemism
From the Pragmatic Perspective
Song Tingting
(Department of Foreign Languages, LǚLiang University, LǚLiang City, Shanxi, 033000)
Abstract:
Euphemism, as a social lubricant of communicative activities, is an indispensable part of interpersonal communication. It is favored by a lot of Chinese and foreign scholars. This paper analyzes English euphemism from the perspective of pragmatic by introducing the formation, the definition, and the classification of English euphemism, and discusses the relationship between two theories including the cooperative principle and politeness principle which are within the pragmatic. Therefore, understanding the necessity and importance of English euphemism is good for people.
Key words: euphemism cooperative principle politeness principle pragmatic
语用学视角下的英语委婉语研究
宋婷婷
（山西吕梁 吕梁学院外语系 033000）
摘要：委婉语作为社会活动交际的润滑剂，是人际交往中不可或缺的一部分，收到了很多中外学者的亲睐。本论文从语用学角度对委婉语进行分析，通过介绍委婉语的起源，定义及分类，并探讨了其在语用学的两大理论（合作原则和礼貌原则）的关系，从而使人们了解学习和运用英语委婉语的必要性和重要性。
关键字：传委婉语 合作原则 礼貌原则 语用学
The Study of English Euphemism
From the Pragmatic Perspective
1. The introduction
With the development of the society, economic and culture, China has become an indispensable part of the world stage, and the communication with western countries is becoming more and more frequent. Understanding Chinese and western cultural differences on international communication plays a very important role, and English euphemism, as an important part of western culture is worth us to study and discuss.
Euphemism is a form of language expression which in order to seek the ideal communication effect in society communicative activities. It can avoid stimulus for people to get comfort and elimination vulgarity for people to get an elegant, meanwhile it can abandon the trite to novel. This paper analyzes English euphemism from the perspective of pragmatic by introducing its origin, definition and classification, and discusses the relationship between two theories including cooperative principle and politeness principle which are within the pragmatic which makes people understand its necessity and importance, and helps people communicate with each other fluently so as to avoid conflict. Furthermore, it can also help Chinese students understand western culture more appropriately, and improve the students’ English communicative competence.
2. the origin, definition, and classification of English euphemism
2.1 The origin of English euphemism
Euphemism has probably been in existence from the very beginning language. It is a mirror of social psychology. To trace the beginning of euphemisms, we cannot neglect “taboo”. The word taboo generally refers to the prohibition (or ban) on the use of, mention of, or association with particular objects, actions, or persons. The term taboo borrowed from the Tongan language was originally Polynesian. Captain James Cook introduced it into the 18th century. When Cook came to the islands in the South Pacific, he observed a lot of strange social phenomena. For example, some objects can only be used by their leader or only by God and common people cannot touch them; some objects are used only for special purpose not for general purpose. The Polynesian called this kind of phenomenon “taboo” which means“holy” or “untouchable”. Because the observance of taboo can be found in many areas besides in Polynesian, the term “taboo” was brought to sociology and anthropology as a special noun to refer to this kind of phenomenon. So, taboo is interpreted as one way in which a society expressed its disagreement on certain kinds of behavior thought to be harmful to its members whether it is for supernatural reasons or it is because such behaves to violate a moral code.
In ancient society, the development level of science and technology was quite low. The primitives had a quite limited understanding and control of their environment. They just couldn’t explain those dangerous and threatening situations, the extraordinary events and confusing phenomena and their success and failure. They thought everything was alive with spirit and language took upon a kind supernatural sense. They regarded language as the source of their misfortune and happiness. Those who did something against this origin would be blessed and benefited. This led to the forbidden use of language and the word-fetishism. Taboo and euphemism are closely related to each other. Almost all cultures seem to have some concepts or things that cannot be mentioned directly because they are to be tabooed, so we use euphemism to substitute taboo words.
2.2 The definition of English euphemism
The English word “euphemism” comes from the Greek word “euphemismos”, the prefix “eu-” means “good/well”, and “pheme” means “speech/speaking”. So the literal meaning of “euphemism” is “to speak with good words or in a pleasant manner” (Howard, 1984:100). The first appearance of the term “euphmism” in the English language occurred in the early 1580s. Thereafter, various definitions of euphemism in English have turned up to compete and complement each other. There are some influential definitions cited as follows:
A) A polite word or expression that you use instead of a more direct one to avoid shocking or upsetting someone. (Longman Dictionary of cotemporary English, 1995)
B) (Example of the) use of pleasant, mild or indirect words or phrases in place of more accurate of direct ones. (Oxford Advanced learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, 1997)
C) A mild or indirect word or phrase that people often use to refer to something unpleasant or embarrassing, sometimes to make it seem more acceptable than it really is. (The New Oxford Dictionary of English, 2008)
As a brunch of language, euphemism and the inherent characteristics of language, is to have vitality. With the development of the society change constantly, the same meaning in different period will have different ways to express with euphemism. For example, “她怀孕了。” This sentence in different age has different euphemism expression:
She has canceled all her social engagement. (1856)
She is in an interesting condition. (1880)
She is in a delicate condition. (1895)
She is knitting little bootees. (1990)
She is in a family way. (1920)
Although different dictionaries define “euphemism” differently from different perspectives or it is in the different ages, most of them are sharing the common points: euphemism is a mild, vague and polite mode of expression used to mean something unpleasant, rude, or offensive, it can make the unpleasant things sound better, and make people feel good; it can also ensure both the speaker and the listener safe without losing face and ensure them comfortable an mutual presence.
2.3 The classification of English euphemism
Euphemism is a kind of appropriate language expression from which people create to seek ideal social communication effect in social association. It changes as the time, the culture, the situation, the theme and individual changes. Therefore, the forms of euphemism are varied, rich and colorful. Euphemism, according to different standard, can be divided into different types.
In general, euphemism is made up of two parts: the traditional euphemisms and stylistic euphemisms.
On the one hand, traditional euphemisms are closely connected with taboos.
A) Euphemisms for death
The item “die” is an absolute taboo, people don’t want to say but usually use euphemism instead of death. Such as, “to pass away”(去世), “to go to heaven”（上天堂了）, “to go to west”（归西）, “to pop off”（砰的一声突然离去）.
B) Euphemisms for illness
Although more than two hundred years ago, countries around the world with different culture for disease taboo does general convergence. In order to reduce the patient’s ideological baggage, weaken the unpleasant atmosphere due to disease and enhance their confidence to overcome the disease, people often use the euphemism in English. Such as, use “big C” replace “long illness or cancer” (癌症); use “ social disease” take the place of “ syphilis (梅毒) or AIDS (艾滋)；with “hard of hearing” replace “deaf”（聋子）.
C) Euphemisms for physiology behavior and sex.
With euphemism to express the physiology behavior is very common language phenomena. In order to speak “厕所” indirectly, there are many euphemism about it in English, such as, “power room”(化妆室)、”toilet”(盥洗室) 、“convenience”(方便去处), meanwhile, people go to toilet to relieve often use euphemism, British and American people often say “to one' s wash hand”(去洗手)、“to power one' s nose”(去向鼻子扑粉的地方,女士用语)、“to answer the call of nature”(响应大自然的号召).
The vocabularies related to sexuality have their euphemism expression. Such as, “the knowledge of sex”(性知识) called “facts of life”; “illegitimate child(私生子) called “ love child”. With the development of the society, people have no longer avoid to talk about the sex, but in some formal situations, people often use “make love” or “sleep together” to express the words about sex besides part adopts medical terms.
C）Euphemisms for age and weight
Age, especially women’s age belongs sensitive personal secret. Most westerners are afraid of growing old, so they often call old people “senior citizen”.
In the West counties, talking about somebody’s figure and weight directly is impolite. For example, if someone is very fat, we usually can not say “fat” but “overweight”. Sometimes, we call a fat girl “plump”, a fat boy “shout”, a fat child “chubby”.
On the other hand, stylistic euphemisms have nothing to do with taboos. They are essentially compliments. They make people feel pleasant.
A) Euphemisms for politics, military and diplomacy
In the area of politics, military and diplomacy, people to use euphemism to conceal the fact to cheat the common people. Such as, “civilian casualties”(平民伤亡)called “collateral damage”(附带损失); “ground war”(地面战争) called “ground operation”(地面行动).
B) Euphemisms for war and crime
The euphemism used in the aspect of war aim at concealing the fact. People use euphemism to lighten people’s disgust to war. Such as, “strategic withdraw(战略转移)” for “retreat(撤退）”;
Crime is a sensitive topic. The judge may speak to the criminal like this “I hereby you to ten years in prison”.
C) Euphemisms for occupation
In order to satisfy people’s psychological demand, occupation euphemism emerges. This kind of euphemism has one common trait, that is, they exclusively elevate people’s status, satisfy their vanity. The manners euphemism use to express the occupation is various. One of is to raise people’s status. For example, when we call the “ garbage man (垃圾处理工)” “sanitation engineer (卫生工程师)”, the status of the garbage man is not regarded as engineer. The other is to beautify the harsh occupation. For example, “dishwasher(洗盘子者)” is called “utensil maintenance man（餐具维护者）”.
D) Euphemisms for industry
“dismiss（解雇）” often called “discontinue （中止）”; “unemployment(失业)” called “temporarily unwaged”(暂时无薪水)or “between jobs”(暂时休息).
E) Euphemisms for education
In today's society, influenced by the concept of humanistic education, people don't like used only lay particular stress on imparting knowledge but pay more attention to cultivate the students' psychology quality and the emotional intelligence, furthermore, from the point of guarantee the students' mental health and protect students' self-esteem as much as possible, which are their face.
Corresponding to the mistakes made by the students in the school with more tolerance. We often use such words to describe as far as possible, such as: describe the students with poor grades, can say “underachievers”(未能充分发挥潜力的学生) or “below the average level of the students” （低于平均水平的学生）or “poor students” （贫困学生）; the students who study hard, you can use “a student who can do better with help” (能够通过别人的帮助做得更好的学生, rather than “missile students” (反应慢的学生); And for students to cheat in the exam, can express “depend on others to do his/her work”; or “need help in learning” (指望别人替自己做作业； 在学习上依赖别人帮助的学生); For the students to lie we can say “have difficulty distinguishing between imaginary and factual information（无法分辨想象中和现实中的信息）rather than directly say “the students tell lie”, so that insure their face.
3. Two theories of pragmatic and English euphemism
3.1 The cooperative principle
We know that quite often a speaker can mean a lot more than what is said. The problem is to explain how the speaker can manage to convey more than what is said and how the hearer can arrive at the speaker’s meaning. H. P. Grice believes that there must be some mechanisms governing the production and comprehension of this utterance. He suggests that there is a set of assumptions guiding the conduct of conversation. This is what he calls the Cooperative Principle (CP). He formulates the principle and its maxims as follows:
3.1.1 Quality Maxim
Try to make your contribution one that is true
Do not say what you believe to be false;
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
3.1.2 Quantity Maxim
(i) Make you contribution as informative as is required ( for the current purpose of the exchange);
(ii) Do not make you contribution more informative than is required.
3.1.3 Relation Maxim
Be relevant.
3.1.4 Manner Maxim
(i) Be perspicuous,
(ii) Avoid obscurity of expression;
(iii) Avoid ambiguity;
(iv) Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity);
(v) Be orderly.
In short, these maxims specify what participants have to do in order to conduct communication in a maximally efficient, rational, cooperative way. To do so, they should speak sincerely, relevantly and clearly, while proving sufficient information.
However, in social verbal, people avoid using expressions with unpleasant connotations by using euphemisms to get rid of the unpleasant psychological associations, and to avoid negative psychological responses, hence overcoming the psychological obstacles, making the communication go on smoothly, and harmonizing interpersonal relationships. Therefore, they have to reconstruct expressions through the violation of the general cooperative principle.
3.2 The cooperative principle and English euphemism
3.2.1 Euphemism Violating Quality Maxim
“Quality” refers to the content of the talk, what the speaker said is not consistent with the facts, or irresponsible, not true words. In order to express the taboo language or something unpleasant, speakers usually complete reply in a rather indirect manner, so the euphemism will deliberately violates the principle of quality, its either exaggerate the fact really want to or understatement flaw the insufficiency in reality. Such as:“exceptional children” for “ handicapped children”; “plain ordinary” for “ugly”; “ underdevelopment countries” for “ poor countries”’ “subnormal” for “mad”; “hair dresser” for “customers representative”
Euphemism violates the principle of quality, so that these humble vulgar words sounds compared with dignity and more decent. Look at the example below:
a) He is a tiger.
This sentence is literally false, openly against maxim of quality, for no human is a tiger. But the hearer still assumes that the speaker is being cooperative and then infers that he is trying to say something distinct from the literal meaning. He can then work out that probably the speaker meant to say that “ he has some characteristics of a tiger”.
b) A: I am going to see a film tonight. Would you like to come?
B: I’d love to, but I’m sorry I can’t. I’ve had another appointment with my friend.
There are two explanations to B's answer. First, he says is true; Second, his answer is just declined, actually he doesn't want to go to the movies, and also does not have a prior engagement with his friend, the reason why he said this is just an excuse for himself, but also give a stairs, although B lied, violates the principle of quality, it is good for both sides of communicator, imaging if straightforward said that, "Sorry, I don't want to come”. The situation must be very embarrassed.
3.2.2 Euphemism Violating Quantity Maxim
"Quantity" refers to the amount of information, the speaker not provide relevant information or too much or too little information. Euphemism is by offering too little information in violation of the cooperative principle in order to make some taboos, embarrassing, rude and inconvenient words sound more pleasing to the ear and making it easier to accept. Such as:
“women’s and men’s” for “ public loose”; “SOB” for “ son-for-bitch”; “BS” for “ Bullshit”; “ JC” for “ Jesus Christ”.
a) A: Tom and Lucy are leaving. I’ll miss them.
B: I’ll miss Tom.
In this dialogue, speaker B violating the quantity maxim. He cannot truthfully provide more detailed information, it can be explained as carrying an implicature that the speaker B will not miss Lucy. He expressed his thought with euphemism.
3.2.3 Euphemism Violating Relation Maxim
For violating relation maxim refers to some people hesitate to say something that not associated with context due to some reasons or purpose. English euphemism sometimes deliberately with seemingly unrelated facts. Such as: “That guy is a thief” is tactful of expression for “He sometimes takes others things without permission.” Thus, although the meaning that people expressed with euphemism is not related to the literal meaning, people also can understand the true meaning by relation maxim. Such as:
a) A: Do you like my new hat?
B: It’s pink.
Irrelevantly seemed to answer, actually indirectly expressed the meaning “I don't like”. According to the earliest definition of euphemism is the “good words”, does not seem to be using beautiful words, but it is through the pragmatic to express the euphemism. A similar example is as follows:
A: Don’t you think she is beautiful?
B: She has a wonderful personality.
In this dialogue, obviously, B’s answer is off the point to A’s question, which indirectly shows that she is not beautiful.
3.2.4 Euphemism Violating Manner Maxim
Most euphemisms violate the maxim of manner. They are indirect, vague, evasive and ambiguous, for example:
He is with social disease. ( social disease for syphilis)；
She has an accident. (she is pregnant);
Inequities breed resentment among the disadvantaged. (disadvantaged for the poor).
A: Where’s your mother?
B: She’s either in the house or at the market.
B can't tell where his mother accurately. In fact, he is not clear. He can answer “I don 't know exactly where”. But out of politeness, he didn't want to disappoint A, then deliberately violate the way criteria, speak some ambiguous words that not only satisfy the requirements of A, but also faint again told A that he can not accurate to say where mother is.
3.3 The politeness principle and English euphemism
3.3.1 The politeness principle
Beside the cooperative principle, there exists another principle that serves when people are talking. It is called the politeness principle, which has been developed by the British linguist Geoff Leech.
Leach put forward the “Politeness Principle” in his book Principles of Pragmatics in 1983 to supplement the American philosopher Grice’s cooperative principle. The cooperative principle is a general principle people should comply with in daily communication. It makes communication efficient because it requires the speaker to express his/her thoughts in direct and specific ways so that the listener doesn’t need any inference to understand what he/she means.
Politeness is the strategy of speech. Leech's politeness principle can better coordinate relationships between self and others and make people more effectively use language in communication. Runs through in these guidelines a central content, that is, give others a little more convenient as far as possible and let self to share more a little lost, try to praise others and belittle yourself. His politeness principles in a nutshell is that under the other same conditions, the impolite beliefs abated at a minimum, that is, "do our best to narrow not polite expression", "try our best to widen our table manners”. Politeness maxim to maintain the equal status and the good relationships between the both sides. Generally speaking, the more indirect and euphemism, the more choice for people and more polite, on the contrary, the discourse is more direct, the greater the likelihood of impaired listener, the greater the likelihood of benefit speaker. And in fact the fundamental purpose of euphemism is to make each other feel you are good and do not force others, don't make the person have no steps to, to praise each other in the language form and means of modesty, to please the other party, so as to please each other. However, to achieve this target, the most effective way is to use polite language communication.
Following Grice’s presentation of the cooperative principle, Leech puts forward six maxims of the politeness principle which runs as follows:
3.3.1.1 Tact Maxim ( in directives and commissives)
(i) Minimize cost to other
(ii) Maximize benefit to other
Tact maxim is the most fundamental of politeness principle, because the tact maxim used for instruction, and instruction is the most need politeness and also one of the most reflect politeness behaviour in all sorts of amateurs. Therefore, the tact maxim is one of the most widely used and most indispensable criteria. In fact, " tact " is the root of manners, use language with politeness means use language strategies. When we ask people to do something need to pay attention to strategies, praise others, invite others and use strategies when express the different points. So that, “tact” is the basic requires of the language, at the same time, it is the highest claim.
In English, the words about the toilet can most reflect tact maxim: “powderroom” (化妆室), "women or ladies' (女士或女士的房间), “convenience” (方便去处). Especially in the formal occasions or public places, using proper euphemism can hide ashamed embarrassing facts and avoid embarrassed and abrupt phenomenon in communication.
In the other hand, people yearning for health, taboo sickness, also taboo to talk about it. This is the common psychology of people’s that irrespective of race around the world. So, a variety of diseases, especially some serious disease have their euphemisms. Such as: the word "cancer" in English people don't want to mention, and often call it “the big C”, or "long illness"; "Trouble" refers to the "heart trouble ", "kidney trouble" and "lung trouble" so on.
3.3.1.2 Generosity Maxim (in directives and commissives)
(i) Minimize benefit to itself
(ii) Maxim cost to itself
Many of English expressions of politeness and euphemism are different from the Chinese expressions. Some words doesn't sound euphemistic, but if translate literally into English will appear a little stiff, not polite. For example, customers to buy things to the store, the salesman will ask: "do you want to What”? People speak Chinese sound is a natural, if translated into English "What do you want?” People speak English sound very sharp. In this case, we usually use euphemism to express : "Can I help you?" For another example, when we ask someone a question, we often said" I want to ask you a question. "is not polite to others. Because it is seldom used in such a statement in English, the speaker usually avoid the blunt and use more euphemisms, such as:
1. I’d like to ask you a question.
2. May I ask you a question?
3. Could I ask you a question?
4. I was wondering if I could ask you a question?
5. Would it possible for you to answer my question?
6. Would you mind my asking you a question?
3.3.1.3 Approbation Maxim (in expressives and assertives)
(i) Minimize dispraise of other
(ii) Maximize praise of other
In communication, in order to avoid the venture and rude, people often use euphemisms to replace the unpleasant, rude, and harsh words in order to avoid hurt each other's feelings. Job industry is a sensitive topic in social life, as long as it is a society, there is always a division of labor, some professions can make more money but some professions only earn less money, some professions are dirty, bitter, tired, some professions are static, idle, escape. So in order to satisfy people's psychological need, some good and sweet language had place, some crown hall and emperor euphemisms are used to conceal and address some careers.
Many works are no longer called “job” (一般性的工作) but called “profession” (多只从事脑力劳动或受过专门训练的职业); “Tree – trimmer” (花木匠) called the “tree surgeon”（花木外科医生），“hair dresser” (理发师) as the “beautician”（美容师）,“floor sweeper”（楼层清洁工）for “custodian engineer” （监管工程师），“bootblack”（擦鞋匠） as the “footwear maintenance engineer”(鞋类保养工程师), “cobbler” (补鞋匠) as the “shoe rebuilder” (鞋子复原师), “dustman” “garbage collector” (垃圾清理工) for “street orderly”（街道清洁师）or “sanitary engineer”(卫生工程师),“hire girl”（女佣人）for “domestic help” (家务助手)，“housekeeper”（管家）for “live-in help”（安居助手），“head-waiter”(侍者领班)for “ captain”（总管）。
Sometimes for the courtesy's sake, to person's appearance also try to use positive, such as "handsome" and " attractive ", "smart" and so on. Even if it is ordinary, even ugly, also use "plain", "ordinary" instead. Use "Plump" (丰满), “heavyset” (身体发福) instead "fat," euphemistic express men's and women's body fat; Use "slender" to suggest "Skinny". These conventional euphemisms from the point of politeness principle’s approbation maxim minimize derogatory towards other people and try to exaggerate the praise to others, and strive to improve the position of others.
When the teacher engaged in "education worker" want to price of students’ conduct and academic performance in front of their parents, they are not only truthfully report the situations and consider students psychological bearing capacity, but also keep the parent's face. So, they have to use euphemism expression, such as under this:
1. He ’s sure to go far if he is highly motivated. He needs ample supervision in order to work well. (不直说 He is lazy.)
2. He is a bit slow for his age. ( 不直说 He is stupid / obtuse.)
3. He has difficulty distinguishing between imaginary and factual information. He has a tendency to stretch the truth. ( 不直说 He lies.)
4. He needs help in learning to adhere to rules and standards of fair play. (不直说 He cheats.)
5. He needs help in learning to respect the property rights of others. (不直说 He steals.)
This group also accord with the approbation maxim, "try to reduce the discount for others, as far as possible to give others great praise." The speaker use euphemisms are good both for students and the parents, and also let them have the face.
3.3.1.4 Modest Maxim (in expressives and assertives)
(i) Minimize praise to self
(ii) Maximize dispraise to self
The modest maxim in the Politeness principle is refers to the speakers from the point of themselves, consider and respect the listeners, to take self-deprecating approach form in language, to please others. In the process of the use euphemism has such examples: As said in English to each other as "Your majesty"; and calling themselves the 'Your humble servant "; the speaker deliberately belittle oneself, reduce their own identity to raise each other, in order to show respect and humility, this obviously has complied with the modest standards.
There is a sentence patterns in English is different with Chinese expressions, because it looks show negative main clause but in fact deny the object clause. Such as someone asks you "Have you ever met my brother?" If you answered," No, I haven't "or" I think I haven "t" is not in conformity with the English habit, idiomatic English table express is:
1. I don’t think I have.
2. I’m afraid not.
3. Not that I remember.
These are typical English negative euphemism expression. They are same to the English men's mouth expression "Thank you/Thanks /Thanks a lot ", "Excuse me/Excuse me, but... "They all adapted to the British and American people's psychological literacy, namely "to reduce as much as possible, it conforms to the modest maxim in the politeness principle.
3.3.1.5 Agreement Maxim (in assertive)
(i) Minimize disagreement between self and other
(ii) Maximize agreement between self and other
In verbal communication, when must show a certain attitude or position but the situation does not allow promontories, the communicators are both use strategies to control and choose the most appropriate communication strategy to suggests their meaning, however, euphemism 体现 this rule. In the western countries, in people's consciousness, the "old" is "outdated", the symbol of the "useless". People were afraid of old; also taboo to mention "old" word, especially women, even very sensitive to "middle - aged". So, speakers often use “elderly”、“senior” instead of “old”; and use “ of a certain age” such vague euphemism to replace “middle age”, the purpose is "try to narrow differences between themselves and others”. Politics is also the area that euphemism prevalent, the government often use the euphemism to downplay, mask, and to gloss over the truth in order to achieve certain political purposes.
Such as: the United States government often say “tax increases"(征税) is "revenue enhancements”（扩充财源）; troops "aggression" （侵略）beautified into the “ military operation”（派兵干涉别国内政）; People from their homes become destitute and homeless is said to "migration"(人口迁移);“economic crisis”(经济危机) by “recession”（衰退）, “depression”（萧条） replaced; “civilian casualties” (平民伤亡) weakened into “collateral damage”(附带损伤); “striking (罢工) beautified into “industrial action” (产业行动) or “Industrial dispute”(产业争端).
Its purpose is to beauty image, to reduce the contradiction of the government and the public, and to exaggerate agreement between the government and the public as far as possible. Obviously, these conventional euphemisms follow the agreement maxim in the politeness principle.
3.3.1.6 Sympathy Maxim
(i) Minimize antipathy between self and other
(ii) Maximize sympathy between self and other
The kinds of behavior about crime with the use of euphemisms, is a kind of strange person's social psychology. Especially the elegant and social field and class, speech and so on place is common euphemism. Such as: “murder” (谋杀) are down to “take care of ”(处理), “the dispose of” (处置), “remove” (除掉), “rub out” (抹掉), “put away” (除掉) and “touch off” (去掉); “Steal” (偷窃) was reduced to “take things without permission”(未经允许而拿走东西),; “burglary theft” (夜窃) and “wiretapping” (窃听) respectively refers to “surreptitious entry” (秘密进入), and “intelligence gathering” (搜集情报); ”Violence“ (暴力) fuzzy into “action” (行动). Also, “prostitution”( 卖淫) are down to “the oldest profession in the world” ( 世界上最古老的职业), “prostitute”( 妓女) fuzzy into “a lady of the town”( 城镇上的女人)、“call girl”( 应召女郎)、“street walker”(街头女郎)。The purpose of the writer is afraid of hurt others, or just for the "gentleman's far kitchen" lofty moral integrity, but the main purpose is don't want to cause disgust, " reduce itself to people's aversion, to exaggerate their sympathy for others as far as possible." From this sense, these conventional euphemisms follow the sympathy maxim in the politeness principle.
There are some other examples in the daily life: when a child is very naughty don't like eating anything, adults can said: “My darling, let’s have a spoon of soup”; in the hospital, we often heard nurses said to patients: “Shall we take the medicine now?” or “How do we feel today?” However, “Today we take up Unit 1.” is the common language of teachers in the class. All is “we” instead of “you” or “I”, these euphemisms make people friendly, and shorten the distance between parents and children, nurses and patients, teachers and students, so strengthen their emotions. These also follow the sympathy maxim in the politeness principle.
Therefore, the core of Leech's politeness principle is: "Minimize benefits of self and maximize benefits of other; Minimize damaged of other, and maximize damaged of self”.
Briefly, the politeness principle requires speakers to “minimize the expression of impolite beliefs”. These maxims can help to explain, among other things, why certain forms are more acceptable than others. In British culture, for example, the politeness principle probably accounts for use of “white lies” in conversation. Every time people open their mouths, they have to consider whether what they say is likely to maintain the face of others and shows that they are polite, because it is conventional to appear to be polite, whatever one’s true feelings. And euphemism is an important means to avoid any potential face affront to the others and show politeness to the others. But, many examples can be illustrate the point that the greater the oncoming face affront occurs, the greater the politeness is show, and the greater the degree of euphemism required. Now, I will discuss three main types of euphemism that could best present the politeness principle: the euphemism concerning political affairs, the euphemism of social status and that about commerce.
Euphemism expression is a necessary form of nonverbal communication of communicators who have a certain social distance proceeding communication in order to maintain the face of each other. So, euphemism is the best way to observe the politeness principle and promote the communication successfully.
4. Conclusion
4.1 Summary
We all live in a word full of communication. Social intercourse appears around all of us. However, a language without euphemism would be a defective instrument of communication. We can say that euphemism is a universal linguistic phenomenon which has great influence on our life. Euphemism exists in all societies and is widely used in our daily life to make the communications harmonious. Increasing awareness of euphemism is a necessary step to heighten interpersonal communication: it is because that euphemism usually helps to bring about a sense of pleasantness in communication, it is a mild, vague pleasant or polite expression to substitute a unpleasant, embarrassing or impolite one by a linguistic or non-linguistic means in a certain context, thus making the communicators get along better with others.
This thesis makes an analysis of English euphemism from the perspective of pragmatics, and discusses the definition, and history, and classification of English euphemism, and the key part of this thesis is discussing English euphemism from the perspective of pragmatics, and some pragmatic theories are used to analyze the relationship between English euphemism and the pragmatic theories.
As we all know, euphemism and pragmatics are closely related. In the communicative process, some of people’s actual language communications adhere to the guiding principles of pragmatics, no matter whether they are consciously or unconsciously.
The cooperative principle is an important pragmatic principle to ensure the success of interpersonal relationships, while euphemism is an important means to maintain people’s daily communication by beautifying the language. In the actual communicative activities, people sometimes violate the cooperative principle and use more tactful, gentle words to express the taboo things that people could not say, or the embarrassing, vulgar things that people don’t want to say, which in fact is a euphemistic expression. English euphemisms often violate the quantity maxim, the quality maxim, the relevance maxim or the manner maxim in the cooperative principle to cover up the unpleasantness.
The politeness principle put forward by Leach explained the problem that the cooperative principle could not solve. Politeness principle explains that the reason why the speaker intentionally goes against the cooperative principle and expresses his ideas implicitly and indirectly is for politeness. Politeness principle requires people to obey the cooperative principle and obverse the politeness maxims, following politeness maxims, people could be more polite and could avoid social conflicts as much as possible, and thus the communication will be more successful.
In daily life, people often do not frankly say what they want to say, instead, they use euphemism to express themselves in an indirectly way, which may be more easily accepted. And euphemism belongs to the indirect speech. More specifically, the indirect speech act is essentially a pragmatic use of euphemism.
4.2 Limitation
This paper we discussed from the perspective of pragmatics English euphemism in communication. But it is confined to its taxonomy and function, and all-round research into its interpretation has so far not yet been done. We have focused our research on the definition, and classification, and two principles of euphemisms. But, we know that learn to use is the ultimate goal of any study. Intercultural communication is one of the main purpose of learning a foreign language. As a result, the relationship between euphemism and intercultural communication are more closely. So, we believe that People in different cultures communication, first of all to understand what cannot and should not be said or don't want to straight in each other's culture; Second to understand is how to use flexible way to express. On the other hand, people want to understanding each other accurately in different cultural backgrounds also should understand the knowledge of euphemism.
With the continuous development of society, economy, and new social and cultural value, people understanding things around us also constantly updated, the range and function of euphemism will change, and so, we should follow the era and study the euphemism furthermore. Euphemism research on semantic, grammar teaching, especially for advanced stage has a great significance to foreign language learning, the correct understanding for students in the reading foreign language material is also very important for people have a better understanding for western culture and eventually to achieve the communication goals. So, how to apply euphemism research in foreign language teaching and promote students' learning, master and use more better in foreign language, is one of our research emphases in the future. Using euphemism correctly in communication can help to create polite communicative atmosphere and win the good communicative effect. And it will surely take on a new look with the development of society.
It must be pointed out that the study made in this thesis is open to discussion. There are certainly some relative problems remaining unsolved in this study due to my knowledge and materials. More detailed and deep research is expected to be done in the future. The author firmly believes that much progress will be made in my future study with more efforts.
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