Military Euphemism From The Perspective Of Adaptation-Relevance Model

For many years, linguistic researchers in China and abroad have studied euphemisms from different perspectives, and have discovered that it formed some specific strategy-choosing in different social classes and language communities. However, the frequently used euphemisms in military field do not get enough attention. The available studies are only based on a few examples and lack of theoretical frameworks and statistics.With the development of corpus linguistics,many linguistic researchers in China have conducted a large number of studies and achieved a lot on the construction and application of corpora.They have testified that,corpora, by virtue of real world texts,great capacity and rapid search,are of great convenience, objectivity and scientificity and have been widely employed in various areas of linguistic studies.Supported with Adaptation-Relevance Model proposed by Ran Yongping (2004), this thesis is a corpus-based study of adaptation contextual correlates, optimal relevance assumptions and the linguistic strategy choices of military euphemisms on both production and interpretation sides. In this study, the author establishes a self-built corpus of military euphemisms by processing the collected military texts with Wordsmith4.0 and conducting a random sampling. Also, the frequencies of strategy-choosing in military and non-military euphemisms are tested by SPSS Chi-square Test to know their similarities and differences.The important findings of the study are: (1) The use of military euphemisms is to seek optimal relevance of the audience; (2) The use of military euphemisms is a process of adaptation to mental, social and physical contextual correlates; (3) Decided by integrated assumptions of adaptation and relevance, the strategy-choosing of military euphemisms include metaphor, circumlocution, abstraction, omission, understatement, substitution, military common orders and nicknames. Results of SPSS Chi-square Test show that noticeable differences between military and non-military euphemisms exist in the choices of abstraction, metaphor and omission; (4) Military common orders and nicknames are the unique linguistic choices of strategy as military euphemisms for expressions of deaths and injuries in battlefield, military operations and weapons.This study not only provides a new perspective and method for the study of military euphemisms, but also further proves the explanatory and applicable force of the Adaptation-Relevance Model.