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2. Literature Review
Euphemism is one of the most important means to organize interpersonal relationship in the use of language. Euphemism, served as a language phenomenon in human language, has attracted wide attention and interest from both Chinese and foreign scholars.
Euphemism first appeared in Book of Songs but the study of euphemism was not through back then. In 1976, a book "An Introduction to Rhetoric" published by Chinese scholar Chen Wang Dao defined and studied euphemism from the perspective of rhetoric. In 1983, Chen Yuan published the book Social Linguistics, in which the essence of euphemism was revealed from profound historical and social psychological background. This book undoubtedly has important reference value to the study of euphemism. The study of euphemism also has a very long history in western countries. As early as 1680s, British writer George Blunt pioneered in the study of euphemism,. According to him, euphemism is defined as a good or favorable interpretation of a bad word. (George Blunt, 1580: 243).Since then, many western scholars made great contribution to the study of euphemism. In 1981, A Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk compiled by Hugh Rawson has been the focus of the study of English euphemism for many years. This book not only traces the euphemism historically but also discusses the characteristics and the definition of euphemism. British linguistics Leech put forward using politeness principle as the principle of the use of euphemism.
Although ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign scholars made some achievements in many ways, but they still leave the many deficiencies. First of all, people may have not fully realized the importance of euphemism research conducted to reveal the essential characteristics of human communication. Secondly, many articles remain in the shallow layer of introduction and do not do in-depth and detailed study. Third, reference literature is relatively single, domestic and foreign researches on euphemism are very few. Fourth, the definition of euphemism lacks scientific references, because the definition of many euphemisms can't tell the difference between rhetoric and linguistic phenomena; in addition, there still exist many problems in euphemism definition, scope, characteristics and research methods.
Based on the relationship between language and culture, this paper studies the development of euphemism and its social value in intercultural communication, and tries to reveal the cultural connotation behind the phenomenon of euphemism. Comparisons show that English and Chinese euphemisms contain rich cultural connotations, reflecting the cultural characteristics of different ethnic groups. Different cultural contexts of euphemism reflect the different cultural connotations, and also reflect people’s attitudes towards life and their ways of thinking. Therefore, to deepen the study of English and Chinese euphemisms can help us understand the differences between Chinese culture and western culture, strengthen mutual understanding of national culture, so as to avoid some unnecessary cultural conflicts and achieve more effective and successful communication.来!自~751论-文|网www.751com.cn
3. Semantic Study of Euphemism
3.1 Origin and definition
Euphemism is native to the Greek word, with the prefix "eu" meaning "good" and the root "pheme" meaning "speech". Thus, the word euphemism itself has the literal meaning of good speech according to its Greek origin. The earliest recorded English definition about euphemism lies in Glossographia (1656) written by Thomas Blount, in which euphemism is defined as "a good or favorable interpretation of a bad word". The new Edition of the Oxford Concise Dictionary compiled in 1976 defines euphemism as "substitution of the mild or vague or roundabout expression for harsh or direct one; expression thus substituted." In 1978, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines it as "(an example of) the use of a pleasanter, less direct name for something thought to be unpleasant". Even if these definitions are a little bit different from each other, there is always a common implicit meaning: "There are some things in our life that should not be stated bluntly or truthfully. And there are times when it is necessary, even wise, not to 'call a spade a spade', but to use some better-sounding names." (Feng Cuihua, 1983) Euphemism is to achieve the ideal communication of the appropriate expression in order to complete the ideal communication task. It uses more subtle language to express a variety of strong or difficult objects. Euphemism occurs when people in certain context try to select proper language expressions resulted by various figures of speech, or through violation of conversational implication produced by cooperative principle.