A Study Of English Euphemism From Prototype Theory

Euphemism, as a common language phenomenon, has its special function in communication and plays an important role in our daily life, thus be called the "lubricant" and "disinfector" of communication. Generally speaking, almost all kinds of languages have certain things or behaviors which people try to avoid mentioning directly, and euphemism is created to avoid these certain things or behaviors by using implicit and roundabout expressions. Through the ages, various scholars have been studied it, and these researches are mainly conducted from perspectives such as sociolinguistics, semantics, pragmatics, rhetoric, fuzzy linguistics and cross cultural comparison. Nevertheless, the study of English euphemism from the angel of cognitive linguistics is rarely involved, which is a deficiency in the previous researches.Over the past thirty years, Cognitive linguistics is a new linguistic paradigm which holds that language competence is a part of cognitive ability. Of all its theories, categorization and prototype theory, which generalizes and reflects the universal nature, is a significant way for human being to perceive and explain the world.This thesis intends to apply the categorization and prototype theory to the study of English euphemism. Three major points have been drawn. Firstly, according to the principle of family resemblance, taboo and its corresponding euphemisms can be treated as a category. In which, taboo is regarded as the prototype as it possesses the most typical features, and its corresponding euphemisms are served as peripheral members. Among these euphemisms, the further it is away from the prototype-taboo, the less family resemblance features it possesses. Thus people will have to take more reactive time in the cognitive process. Secondly, diachronic study shows that euphemisms are in a dynamic process of creation-supersession-recreation. Some euphemisms, after being used frequently for a long time, gradually possess the typical features of this category, and finally become the taboos. On the other hand, with the changing times and the shift in mindset, there are some taboos existed in a long period, which may become a common expression at last. Thirdly, as for the cognitive motivations of euphemism, both the changing from prototype to peripheral meaning and the weakening of the typicality of family resemblance will result in people spending more time in the cognition process.Thus we can acquire an in-depth understanding of English euphemism as well as make a contribution to the systematic study and application of euphemism.