摘 要委婉语是英语语言文化中的一种普遍现象，有其丰富的文化内涵,是社会道德、社会心理等文化现象的反映, 其构成方式也多种多样。委婉语作为一种特殊的语言形式其含蓄、迁回、模糊的含义更让人觉得难以把握准交流信息的准确性。了解英语委婉语的语言特点与文化内涵能帮助我们更好地掌握并运用英语这门语言。由此本文通过对委婉语的特征，及其在日常生活中的应用进行深入了解，并结合英语语言的礼貌、幽默、避俗、忌讳等理论原则，对委婉语语言特点和文化内涵进行深入分析，从而深化、提高、改善人们对英语委婉语的了解。24982
毕业论文关键词：英语委婉语；语言特点；文化内涵
Abstract Euphemism is a common phenomenon in English language and culture, and it has rich cultural connotation. It is the reflection of cultural phenomenon which includes social morality, social psychology, besides the composition of it is very variety. As a special kind of language form, euphemism makes people feel difficult to grasp the accurate information in communication with its characteristics of implicit, periphrasis and vagueness. Understanding linguistic features and cultural connotation of English euphemism can help us understand and use the English language. This paper through analysis the characteristics of euphemism as well as the development and application in our daily life, is to deepen, improve and enhance our understanding of English euphemism.
Key words: English euphemism; language feature; culture connotation
Contents
摘 要ⅰ
Abstract .ⅱ
Ⅰ. Introduction ...1
Ⅱ. Linguistic Features of English Euphemism 2
2.1 Phonetic Features .2
2.2 Lexical Features .......4
2.3 Grammatical Features ..........6
2.4 Pragmatic Features .......8
2.5 Stylistic Features ..........9
Ⅲ. The Cultural Connotation of English Euphemism ...10
3.1 Religious Beliefs..10
3.2 Code of Conduct .11
3.3 Views and Values ....12
3.4 Social Psychology .......12
3.5 Political Life.........13
Ⅳ. Conclusion......13
Bibliography.15
Acknowledgments .16
The Linguistic Features and Cultural Connotation of English Euphemism
Ⅰ.Introduction
Euphemism is a common and important rhetorical style of language. The world was first used by the British writer George Blunt in the early 1580’s. Oxford Concise Dictionary (1995) defined it under “Substitution of mild or vague or round-about expression for harsh or direct one; substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant” and Macmillan English Dictionary (2003) defined it in another way “a word or expression that people use when they want to talk about something unpleasant or embarrassing without mentioning thing itself”.
The appearance of euphemism is based on two reasons: one aims to take the place of “taboo”. When giving up a taboo word, people will find another new one to instead it, which creates a euphemism. The other aims to avoid offensiveness during the communication. It is a figure of rhetoric by which an offensive or unpleasant thing is described or referred to by a mild term. Many linguists and scholars have studied the linguistic phenomenon from different aspects. Such as Grice (1975), Rawson (1981), Leech (1985), the study of them has been mainly restricted in three areas: rhetoric, semantic, dictionary compiling. And they paid more attention to the definitions, formation and the classification from different aspects.
Therefore, the paper mainly pays attention to the linguistic features and culture connotation of euphemism. Thus, the creation and usage of euphemism is a common phenomenon in human language. Because euphemism is used in certain community and is influenced by social-cultural factors, thus, it is heavily marked with social-cultural features. As a special language phenomenon, euphemism not only includes those euphemistic expressions accepted by community members, but also includes the euphemistic communication style that people adopt in specific environment. The use of euphemism varies with the gender, age, social status and occupation, etc., of the social members and euphemism covers various aspects of social culture, including social conventions, traditional morality, religion, social values and politics, etc., which shows that euphemism is deeply rooted in social culture. Thus it is impossible to have a profound understanding of language without referring to social culture. 英语委婉语的语言特点和文化内涵:http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_18615.html