II. Euphemism and Death Euphemism

As a language phenomenon, euphemism plays a vital role in our daily communication. Euphemism consists of conscious substitutions and forbidden terms by the indirect expression. Scholars have paid great attention to it.

2.1 Definition of Euphemism

Euphemism is originated from Greece. According to the work-formation, “eu” means good, sounding “well” and “pheme” means “speech or saying”. When combined with the two parts, the meaning of the euphemism is “comfortable words”. Neaman defines the euphemism “substituting an inoffensive or pleasant term for a more explicit, offensive one, thereby veneering the truth by using kind words”. Lexicographer H. Rawson called it “linguistic jip leaves”. American writer H. L. Mencken called it “gilded words”. Even other people called it “sweet talk”. From these views, one can easily see the importance of the euphemism. Besides, its occurrence elevates human civilization to a new level. On the one hand, it can sustain the implement and efficiency of linguistic taboo. On the other hand, it also can maintain the interpersonal relationship and make communication smoother. Euphemism is used to cover unspeakable or embarrassing facts, especially in death. Therefore, it avoids the possible embarrassing and brusque phenomenon, giving both sides of communication a gentle, implicit and elegant impression.

2.2 Causes of Death Euphemism

Firstly, death euphemism is originated from the superstition of ancient times. As we all know, language is the carrier of culture, a signal to pass massage in essence. In ancient times, because of the limitation of ability, when people explore the world, they cannot understand some physical and natural phenomena, such as, birth and death, thunderbolt and volcanic explosion. Therefore, they generated an unaccepted feeling and fear, which results in the occurrence of superstition and even language was endowed with a mysterious power. Human regarded language as a super-normal magic, which can bring people with all kinds of good or bad luck. Naturally, people believe the things that represented by language are equal to the language itself. Under the circumstances, human is quite cautious to select a way of euphemism and taboo when they want to express the word about death, to avoid infuriating the deities. So we can say it’s the cause of death taboo. If one mentions the word “death” in a direct way, 源!自`751~文)论(文]网[www.751com.cn which might bring fatal disaster with him or his families. Therefore, even when one has to talk about the massage of death, he will try to replace it with a euphemism, so as to save himself by avoiding the bloody disaster.

Secondly, death euphemism’s occurrence avoids liberty and rudeness. The producing of euphemism has a close relation to language taboo. In some of unspeaking taboos, one usually replaces it by euphemism, which is exactly to avoid abruptness and rudeness. In China, when one is not sure whether others’ parents are still alive, he will ask the question in this way, “How are your parents?” to express the same meaning in order to avoid the word “death”. Similarly, if you want to tell others your parents had passed away, you also can express it in an indirect way, which won’t make you feel more sadness, such as, “This sweater was knitting by my mother when she is living.” So is English. In English, “death” can have lots of expressions, such as, go to the heaven, lay down one’s life, breathe one’s last, say hello to Marx, pay the debt of nature, decrease, expire, reach a better world and etc. Through the death euphemism one can not only pass the indispensable message, but also make others feel less offensive and impolite.