A Sociolinguistic Study Of Changing Patterns Of Euphemism

Euphemism is commonly known as the "expression that seeks to avoid being offensive". It is an active factor to determine whether the communicative activity ends up in failure or success in no matter what kinds of social and cultural contexts. The present paper attempts to apply recent theories from linguistics to the study of euphemism changing patterns at the sociolinguistic level. It aims to (1) develop a framework for euphemism changing pattern analysis and (2) examine the patterns in both English and Chinese as an illustration of the framework offered. The dissertation consists 7 chapters. Chapter 1 includes the definition of the term "euphemism" and the classification of euphemism.The second chapter includes a brief review of euphemism research work both home and abroad. Moreover, the aspects that are still expected exploration are discussed.Chapter 3 is the core of the whole dissertation. Firstly, it reviews briefly the theoretical foundations of the study, chiefly Firth's idea of context, Halliday's view of language, and Huge Rawson's laws of euphemism change. Secondly, it suggests a framework for the analysis of euphemism changing patterns in a flow chart. The framework chiefly consists of (1) Dead Euphemism, which shows that euphemism may die out after a period of employment by various contexts;(2) Changing Euphemism, which indicates that euphemism vary into other forms of language by social, cultural and situational context, chiefly common vocabulary, taboo, dysphemism, slang and cliche;(3) Living Euphemism, which explains some euphemisms are in enduring employment by various context.Using this framework, three changing patterns of euphemism are described and analyzed. Chapter 4 mainly examines the dead euphemism, chapter 5 mainly discusses the changing euphemism, and chapter 6 explores the living euphemism.The major argument developed in the analysis is that euphemisms are in everlasting and constant change by social, cultural and situational context and they mainly fall into three changing patterns, which are dead euphemism, changing euphemism, and living euphemism. The work concludes with Chapter 7 that still more effort needs to be made in the study of euphemism change.