浅谈英语委婉语和伊拉克战争(1)(2)
2015-06-05 02:33
导读：Euphemism, as a language phenomenon, has some special characteristics. According to Yan Meiying, the characteristics of euphemism can be generalized in five aspects. That is universality, culture spec
Euphemism, as a language phenomenon, has some special characteristics. According to Yan Meiying, the characteristics of euphemism can be generalized in five aspects. That is universality, culture specificity, re-symbolism, obscurity and beautification.
2.1 Universality
Almost all cultures seem to have certain notions or things that people try to avoid mentioning directly. That is, nearly every culture has its own taboos. When such a notion or thing has to be referred to, the practice will be to substitute a different term or phrase that sounds better. “So we have euphemism in almost every language.” [2]
2.2 Culture specificity
The universality of euphemism means that euphemisms are not identical in different languages. Instead euphemism is relevant to culture. Notions, things, or taboos in different cultures are not necessarily the same. Therefore, the people’s attitudes towards them are different. It is another characteristic of euphemism that we call it “culture specificity”. “So to know the corresponding culture is essential to understand and use the euphemism properly.” [3]
2.3 Re-symbolism
From the definition of euphemism, we can know clearly that euphemism is using one expression to replace another. “That is to say, euphemism is a re-symbolizing of things, ideas, or events already symbolized with precision in mind. Therefore people can’t randomly utilize an expression to euphemize the taboos. The re-symbolizing should provide clues to catch the intended meaning of the taboos and should sound indirect or pleasanter.” [4]
2.4 Obscurity
Obscurity is a basic feature of euphemism. In order to avoid mentioning some notions, things or taboos directly, we always use semantic obscurity to take place of the precise words. For example, to avoid mentioning the term death, people take pains to substitute it with the terms of pass away, be with God, go to a better world, depart from the world, etc. Therefore, if there is no obscurity, euphemism will lose its euphemistic value.
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2.5 Beautification
Another characteristic of euphemism is beautification. For the reason that taboo words sound unpleasant, harsh and offensive, people use euphemisms to replace them. They resort to euphemisms to dress up the taboos with more beautiful clothes and to beautify the terms or notions.
From the characteristics of the euphemism, it seems that the employment of euphemism is viewed positively as the use of kind words to avoid mentioning taboos. However, some recent trends in English euphemisms have gone beyond the traditional definition, such as those comfortable words used to cover up the social, political and war problems. Hence, euphemisms are often used by politicians or statesmen as a mean to cover up and beautify their actions. In a sense, euphemism as a figure of speech therefore, is more than just saying something unpleasant in a pleasant way especially in the politics and war affairs.
3. Politics and war euphemism and its relevant contents
3.1 Definitions of politics and war euphemism
