英语委婉语社会功能的研究_英语论文

A study on the Social Function of English Euphemism

摘要

在社会语言沟通过程中，由于不同的情况和条件，人们不能直接表达一些事，尤其是令他们痛苦的，不愉快的，甚至感到厌恶和尴尬的事情。因此，他们必须使用一些模糊，含蓄，温和，委婉的表达，以达到在适当的情感氛围中用适当的表达来交流思想的目的。英语委婉语是一种社会文化现象，一个社会只要有禁忌现象存在，语言中就有相应的委婉语。委婉语在社会交往中有着广泛的功能，主要是回避功能，礼貌功能，伪装功能和欺骗功能。

关键词：委婉语；功能；应用

Abstract

Language in the community process, due to different circumstances and conditions, people can not directly express something, especially something make them feel painful, unpleasant,or even disgusted and embarrassed. Therefore, they must use some vague, subtle, gentle, tactful expressions, for the purpose of exchanging ideas with appropriate expressions in an appropriate emotional atmosphere. Euphemism is a social and cultural phenomenon. As long as the phenomenon of taboo exists, there is a corresponding language expression of Euphemism. Euphemism is rhetorically an important element of a broad social function including the avoidance function, politeness function, disguise function and deceptive function.

Keywords: Euphemism; function; application

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Definition of Euphemism 1

2.2 Findings of Euphemism 1

3. Social Function of English Euphemism 2

4. Application of Euphemism in Different Areas 3

4.1 Euphemism about Gods, death, disease 3

4.2 Euphemism about appellations and personal affairs 5

4.3 Euphemism about international affairs 7

4.4 Euphemism about politics and business 9

5. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12