The Application Of English Euphemisms In English Language Teaching

Working as an indispensable and natural part of English language, English euphemisms have long been arousing wide interest from many linguists and scholars. Researches into this topic cover different perspectives, including linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, psychology, so on and so forth. Based on the achievements done before, this thesis attempts to discuss the application of euphemisms in English language teaching from the perspective of pragmatics.We firstly illustrate the study we focus this research on, some pragmatic theories we resort to, and our methodology and source of data.In order to form a general concept about euphemisms, we firstly illustrate some knowledge of euphemisms, including their origin and development, their definitions, their nature, their classifications and formation. When it comes to their formation, basing our new model on the ones offered by Warren (1992a), another one by Wu Songchu (1999), together with the relevant theory on non-verbal interactions by Knapp and Daly (2002), we attempts to analyze the formation of euphemisms from the perspective of pragmatics, thus making our following discussion about the application of euphemisms done in a wider scope: verbal euphemistic expressions and non-verbal euphemistic expressions.The application of euphemisms in English language teaching is only one part of the application of euphemisms. The study into the application of euphemisms as a whole helps our students apply euphemisms appropriately (see 4.3.3). The application of euphemisms has a lot to do with pragmatic theories like Politeness Principle, Face Theory, and Cooperative Principle. Falling our back on them, we study the function of euphemisms, and factors influencing the application of euphemisms. We find that when the request for Cooperative Principle is contradictory to Politeness Principle, Politeness Principle always takes precedence over Cooperative Principle. We also find that the superficial irrelevance indicatespotential relevance pragmatically. It seems that the more irrelevant the expression appears to the connotation of the referent, the more euphemistic the expression is. That's the two pragmatic theories aiding to the construction of euphemisms: violation of Cooperative Principle and Relevance Theory.The application of euphemisms shows great value in our English language teaching and learning. In Chapter Four, we discuss the accessibility of introducing euphemisms to our second language teaching class. By a survey we made into our students' knowledge on English euphemisms as well as other factors, we prove it necessary to introduce euphemisms to our second language teaching. We then analyze some factors influencing the fulfillment of this work, thereby revealing some problems existing in our current college English teaching. In order to solve this, we put forward some tentative strategies to help the students grasp this language phenomenon, thus improving their basic linguistic competence and their communicative competence. These strategies include: comparison, multimedia teaching aids, appropriateness of euphemistic expression, teaching in a euphemistic way and encouraging the students to employ the euphemistic expressions they have learned to promote successful communication.All in all, this thesis attempts to call forth people's attention to the importance of euphemisms in our daily communication so as to aid further research and better understanding of this language phenomenon. Communication is the most fundamental function of all languages. Successful communication is of great importance in our daily life, and euphemisms ensure us a smooth interaction with other people since this way of expression takes others' "face want" into consideration and puts "politeness' in the first place. As is remarked above, it is practical and meaningful to introduce knowledge of English euphemisms into our second language acquisition.