A Study Of Euphemism In Business Conversations From Impression Management Approach

Euphemism, a kind of verbal communicative strategies, is frequently used in daily interactions and plays a positive role in smooth communication. In recent years, the studies on euphemism have extended from micro rhetorical function to macro pragmatic meaning. Leary and Kowalski thought that people use euphemism is not just to deal with some embarrassing or unpleasant situations. In many cases, euphemism application is controlled by the motivation of impression management, and with which people employ the euphemism strategy in order to leave desired impressions to the communicatees. So far, studies about the internal causes on euphemisms from impression management perspective are relatively deficient.For that reason, the present thesis mainly studies the causes of euphemism based on the two-component impression management model---the impression motivation and impression construction that put forward by Leary and Kowalski(1990). More specifically, impression motivation refers to the factors that drive people to use euphemisms; while impression construction focuses on the methods used to convey euphemism.In the present study, it is found that in business workplace, office staffs care a lot about their utterances or behaviors. They usually express their views with euphemism strategy so as to win the favor of leaders, colleagues, subordinates and customers for the development of individual as well as company. And euphemism speech acts are actually controlled by the impression management motivation. Those motivations include three aspects:(1) The motives for obtaining desired outcomes and avoiding undesired outcomes including social outcomes and material outcomes.(2) The motives for constructing and maintaining self-esteem.(3) The motives for establishing and developing self-identity. Driven by these motivations, businesspersons attempt to employ euphemism to achieve some positive impressions, such as, capable, knowledgeable, superior, confident and optimistic images and by means of the assertive tactics and defensive tactics to construct those desired impressions.The present study of the thesis attempts to display the unique side of euphemism applied to impression management and enable people to have a better understanding about the causes and means of euphemism under the business context. It aims to help businesspersons a bit in making better use of euphemism in practical communication, and promote better development for individuals and companies in the future.