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Chapter 2: Pragmatic Functions of Euphemism
A
variety
of
euphemisms
in
all
fields
share
universal
functions
in
communication.
Euphemism
is
a
“lubricant”
in
interpersonal
relations
since
euphemistic
expressions
can
avoid
being
presumptuous
in
language
communication
and
deliberately
lessens
the
negative
or
unpleasant connotations and reminds
people of nicer images. When we have to touch upon
some
topics
that
are
unpleasant,
we
tend
to
choose
more
euphemistic
expressions
to
substitute
those
painful
topics
so
as
not
to
hurt
the
hearer’s
feeling.
Euphemism
plays
a
very
important
role
in
communication.
Generally
speaking,
euphemism
serves
four
basic
pragmatic
functions:
evasion
function,
indirectness function, politeness function and
decoration function.
2.1 Evasion
Function
Words are powerful and the
reticence and fear that some tabooed terms arouse
in people can
be
strong
(Allan
and
Burridge
1991).People
are
subjected
to
varieties
of
fear,
such
as
disease,
death, war, old
age, poverty and any sort of disability; people
also fear supernatural forces, that we
suppose, may come from religion and
superstition; people fear the negative sides of
our lives as
well. Pragmatically, the
phenomenon of linguistic taboo has existed in
almost all nations across
the world.
The tabooed things are believed to be dangerous to
certain individuals, or to the society
as a whole, or to be disgusted and
unpleasant in that violating the taboo would
automatically cause
harm even death to
the violator or his/her fellows. The evasion
function of euphemisms is to evade
using taboos, enabling the speaker to
talk about the tabooed things freely. For example,
the word
cancer has come to be equated
with malignancy, corruption and death, so it is
generally shunned.
Instead,
people
prefer
to
use
growths
and
tumors
since
both
can
be
benign
whereas
the
view
prevails that cancer can never be
benign.
In western societies,
although sex education is very popular, this does
not mean they can use
all the words
related to sex without choice. Except for some
medical terms in a special situation,
they may use euphemistic words to talk
about it. The evasion function of such euphemisms
helps
people to meet the needs of
morality and facilitate communication.
Another example, people have seldom
mentioned the terms about the reproduction
directly.
There
are
many
euphemisms
for
pregnancy
such
as
in
a
family
way,
be
expecting,
be
in
a
delicate/an
interesting condition, in the(pudding)club, have a
bun in the oven, be with child. The
evasion function of these euphemisms
can make people unembarrassed and pleasant.
Body
excretion
evokes
disgust
or
repugnance
in
sensory
organs.
The
place
for
body
elimination process is
equally surrounded with taboo. Hundreds of
euphemistic expressions have
been
coined to evade mentioning its existence. Common
terms are ladies and gents,
women’s and
men’s for segregated public
loos,
which have given rise to
variations like boys and girls, guys and
gals and in places like seafood
restaurant buoy and gulls. In modern western
society, Christianity
has
a
deep
influence
on
the
American
and
British
culture,
which
in
turn,
influences
people’s
linguistic behavior. People especially
those who are well educated would not use any
disrespectful
language to offend God or
the ghost Satan and make blasphemy. People use
euphemisms like god
of
this
world, His
sable
Majesty,
and
Old
gentleman
in
black, Old
Harry
etc.
in
order
to
avoid
mentioning name of ghost directly.
People also fear to mention defeat in
war or nature of invasion, thus evasion function
also
plays a vital role in euphemisms
related. For army men, there is only going ahead,
no withdrawal;
only
victory,
no
defeat
so
that
be
defeated
is
called
as
light
and
scattered
action
or
incomplete
success. In the Vietnam War, America
called their air raid as logistical strikes or
close air support.
Killing of the
common Vietnamese people is wasting the enemy, the
obvious civilian casualties is
collateral damage. During the Gulf War,
air operation and round operation were used to
substitute
air raid and ground battle
so that the cruelty of the war could be hidden
literally.
Invasion into
other
countries
is
beautified
to
rescue
mission.
After
the“9.11”attack,
Anti
-terrorism
and
pre-emptive
strikes
are
widely
used
by
the
American
Military.
Pre-emptive
strike
impresses
us
that the best way to curb
the enemy’s
attack is to assault them
first, therefore, it sounds ethically
correct. Actually, terrorism has been
mingled with ethnical liberation and the target of
pre-emptive
strikes has turned to clear
up dissidents.
2.2 Indirectness
Function
Indirectness is a universal
phenomenon in all languages. For particular
purposes, people do
not
always
express
their
intentions
explicitly
in
language.
Therefore,
indirectness
function
of
euphemism
plays
an
important
role
in
language
use.
The
indirectness
function
is
to
employ
euphemistic
expressions
to
widen
the
distance
between
signs
and
their
referents
that
can
be
brought
about by creating new signs in place of the old
ones. As we know, any linguistic sign is a
two-face carrier of sound and meaning.
A particular sound stands for a particular
meaning, which
operates
in
an
arbitrary
manner.
In
communication,
direct
mention
of
the
tabooed
things
is
considered
offensive,
shocking
unpleasant
or
impolite,
so
people
are
inclined
to
use
indirect
expression, which
is one of the biggest features of euphemisms. In
fact, all means of euphemism
formation
agree with indirectness.
In
conversation,
people
used
to
make
requests
or
give
orders
by
means
of
imperative
sentences
and
come
to
identify
requests
and
orders
with
imperative
sentences.
For
the
sake
of
euphemizing, people use
interrogative sentences to create a distance. And
the hearer reads out the
speaker’s
real
intention
according
to
the
context.
In
English,
the
past
tense
can
be
used
to
euphemize things because people tend to
associate the present tense with present things or
ideas. If
some one wants to make a
request, he does not say I want t
o…,I
wonder…,Can
you…?,but says I
wanted…,I
wondered…,Could
you…?This
example
covers
our
typology
of
grammatical
euphemism.
Generally
speaking,
we
usually
meet
some
sensitive
unpleasant
topics
without
real
taboo
counterparts,
such
as
death,
disease,
age,
private
things,
physical
defect,
poverty,
social
status,
occupation, theft,
murder, drug-taking etc. If we talk about thing
directly we may hurt or offend
others;
meanwhile,
we
will
lose
our
own
face
and
be
considered
impolite
to
others.
At
this
moment,
euphemisms
can
help
us
with
its
indirectness
function.
Euphemisms
are
preferred
to
soften the shock of reality. For
example, the phrase life insurance is actually
insurance for when
you are dead. People
use death’s antonym life to cast a veil over
the
reality death with so that the
phrase
is
more
acceptable.
In
all
cultures,
the
topic
about
one’s
appearance
is
very
sensitive,
people use
euphemisms such as plain, ordinary, or not
particularly good-looking etc. usually avoid
using the terms ugly or awful directly
in order
not to hurt others’
feeling.
In fact, the
indirectness function of euphemism is a universal
function of euphemism which
can
be
found
in
many
topics
such
as
disease,
disability
and
all
kinds
of
unpleasant
things
and
phenomena. In this way,
people can create pleasant and harmonious
atmosphere and avoid offense
and
distress.
2.3
Politeness Function
Language and
society are inter-related, each imposing its
constrains on one another. Social
norms
and conventions have played a significant role in
the way we use language. Politeness, as
one of the essential norms, is a
universal phenomenon because politeness is usually
regarded as
manifestation
of
human
civilization,
and
it
is
one
of
the
most
effective
strategies
modulating
interpersonal
relationship
in
human
communication.
Euphemism
always
gives
people
hints
in
a
roundabout
way.
Euphemism
can
not
only
make
the
speakers
feel
relaxed
when
talking
of
the
things
which
he/she
may
feel
too
shy
to
mention,
or
of
the
things
which
may
probably
make
him/her feel disgraced if spoken out
directly, or of the things that tend to place both
the speaker
and
the
listener
in
a
state
of
embarrassment;
but
also,
euphemism
can
protect
the
listener’s
self-esteem,
sometimes vanity from being hurt. Hence, people
often choose obscure and indirect
euphemism to show their politeness and
sympathy.
For example, when someone is
ill, we always say he is under the weather. If
someone is mad,
we say he is soft in
mind. In Chinese, we seldom say she is not good
looking. We are inclined to
she
is
homely
or
she
has
a
wonderful
personality.
From
this
example,
when
we
come
across
a
rather
ugly
girl,
we
will
not
directly
utter
ugly
but
plain
girl
instead,
or
emphasizing
her
personality instead of commenting on
her appearance directly thus bringing self-
confidence to the
girl consequently
promoting human relations.
In order not
to mention the vulgar topics such as the topic
concerning sex, pregnancy has a
direct
association
with
sex
so
that
a
pregnant
woman
is
euphemized
to
a
lady
in
waiting,
have
one’s watermelon on the
vine, or an expectant mother, a lady in
an interesting condition ect. Not
only
in daily life but also in military field,
euphemism is employed to express specific meaning
indirectly. Be defeated is called as
light and scattered action or incomplete success.
In the Vietnam
War, America
called
their
air
raid
as
logistical
strikes
or
close
air
support;
the
obvious
civilian
casualty is collateral damage.
As everyone is in pursuit of being
slender, plump, stout, heavyset and king-sized are
used to
substitute fat. Examples also
emerge in sentences:
(42)She has filled
out a lot since I last saw her. (Liu Chunbao 2001)
(43)She is full bodied woman who shows
every one of her 33 years.
As
time
goes
on,
people
change
their
aesthetic
judgment
towards
beauty
and
slimness
is
dominant.
So
it
is
impolite
and
hurtful
to
describe
a
person,
especially
a
female
as
fat.
Then
euphemism for fat has sprung like
mushrooms. In the former example, fill out
indirectly means get
fat and full
bodied is a good name for fat. We also have other
euphemistic expressions for this
taboo
such
as
king-
sized,
role-poly,
well-fed
well-round,
thick-set,
etc.
These
euphemistic
expressions are
helpful for maintaining people’s face and dignity
and make
social communication
easier and smoother.
Likewise,
old
people
is expressed indirectly as
senior citizen or the longer-lived.
In
educational field, teachers not only need to
reflect the actual situation of the students, but
also need to take their psychological
health and to what degree they can tolerate into
account. So
their utterances to
students also are indirect. For instance, a bit
slow for one’s age
replaces obtuse;
needing
to
develop
quieter
habits
of
communication
substitutes
noisy;
having
difficulty
in
distinguishing
between
imaginary
and
factual
information
takes
over
lying;
needing
helping
in
learning to adhere to
rules and standards of fair play avoids uttering
cheating.
In
language
communication,
speakers
tend
to
hunt
some
roundabouts
to
replace
the
direct
expressions for
polite intentions such as request, order,
suggestion, advice and inquiry and so forth.
Some examples are given as follows:
(44)Would you please close the window?