Sociolinguistics Approach To The Study Of Euphemism

The word "euphemism" is derived from the Greek eu "good", and pheme"speech" or "saying", and means literally "to speak with good words or in a pleasantmanner" (Neaman et al, 1983: 1). Although the recorded use of euphemism isverifiably found no later than the eleventh century B.C.E., the term "euphemism" wasfirst proposed by George Blount by the early 1580s to refer to "a good or favorableinterpretation of a bad word" (Ibid.). Traditionally, the study of euphemism has been mainly confined within threeareas: rhetoric, semantics and dictionary compiling. The rhetorical view treatseuphemism as a figure of speech, closely related to linguistic taboos. It reveals indetail the formation, classification of euphemisms and their relation to taboos whilementioning social influence only in passing. The semantic analysis regardseuphemizing as an "associative engineering", i.e. replacing a word which hasoffensive connotations with another expression, which makes no overt reference tothe unpleasant side of the subject (Leech, 1985: 45). This approach explores the originand formation of euphemisms in terms of their semantic features. The lexicographicalapproach, widely adopted by scholars, mainly deals with the meaning, etymology ofeach euphemism and its relation to other terms, while offering no further informationabout euphemism. These analyses are specific and clear-cut as to what euphemismsare and how they are formed and classified, but they all neglect the important fact thatlanguage and language use are deeply rooted in human society, and any adequateaccount of language cannot be separated from its sociocultural and communicationalcontext. As a result, they often fail to tell us why and how euphemisms are originatedin the first place;how the practice of euphemism varies with time, place, participants,subject matter, medium and form of society;and how euphemism influences languageand communication. To answer these questions, this dissertation poses a newapproach, i.e. a sociolinguistic approach to the study of euphemisms. Inspired by thetheoretical insights of modern linguists, we suggest a contextual framework to explorethe creation and practice of euphemisms, and their diachronic and synchronic features.The major argument of this dissertation is: euphemism, as a socioculturalphenomenon, should be examined in its sociocultural and communicational context. This dissertation is composed of five chapters: Chapter One is the introduction, which provides a general account of thedefinition, classification of euphemisms and briefly reviews three past approaches toeuphemism study so as to put forward the argument of this dissertation.Chapter Two establishes the theoretical foundations for this study. Drawing agreat many insights from modern linguists, notably Malinowski's social view oflanguage, Halliday's notion of register, and Hymes' analysis of speech events, wesuggest a contextual framework for the analysis of euphemisms. The frameworkconsists of two major components: macrocontext, i.e. a social setting or environmentin which a semantic word gains a socially engendered connotation, and microcontext,i.e. a particular situation in which a word with its socially acquired connotation isused or avoided in such a way as to be appropriate to the situation. This chapter servesas the basis for Chapter Three and Chapter Four, which form the core of thisdissertation.Chapter Three discusses the creation and practice of traditional euphemism andstylistic euphemism with the help of the contextual framework. It is found that notonly is the creation of euphemisms a natural consequence of the interaction betweenlanguage and society, but also the practice of euphemisms cannot be isolated from thecommunicational context in which they are used. Any change of one or more factorsof a communicational event, i.e. participants, setting, subject matter, medium, andpurpose of conversations and attitudes of participants, will influence our decision ofwhether to use euphemism or not as well as when, where and how to use it. Inaddition, we conduct a diachronic and a synchronic analysis of euphemism and findthat which subjects and what portions of them are acceptable or forbidden vary fromculture to culture and from one historical period to another within a single culture.Chapter Four takes a dialectical view to explore the sociocultural and linguisticinfluence of euphemism on language and communication. The influence on languagecan be traced at the phonetic, semantic and pragmatic level of language. Furthermore,euphemism serves two fundamental functions in communication: substitution oftaboos and strategic use of language.Chapter Five concludes the whole dissertation and discusses how the findingsand results of this study can be applied to cross-cultural communication and foreignlanguage teaching (FLT) and learning. The sociolinguistic information obtained fromthe study along with their underlying cultural values, can be applied to cross-culturalcommunication so as to minimize mutual misunderstandings and avoid interpersonalconflicts. Furthermore, knowledge of euphemisms can be incorporated into a foreignlanguage curriculum to improve students' cross-cultural awareness, and ultimately todevelop their cross-cultural communicative competence.