| The word "euphemism" is derived from the Greek " eu " (good) , and "pheme" ( saying ) , and means literally "to speak with good words or in a pleasant manner"(Neaman et al,1983: 1). Although the recorded use of euphemism is verifiably found no later than the eleventh century B. C., the term "euphemism" was first proposed by George Blount by the early 1580s to refer to "a good or favorable interpretation of a bad word"(Ibid).In the past, the study of euphemism has been mainly confined within three areas: rhetoric, semantics and dictionary compiling. The rhetorical view treats euphemism as a figure of speech, closely related to taboos while mentioning social influence only in passing. The semantic analysis regards euphemizing as an "associative engineering', i. e. replacing a word which has offensive connotations with another expression, which makes no overt reference to the unpleasant side of the subject (Leech, 1985:45). This approach explores the origin and formation of euphemisms in terms of their semantic features. The lexicographical approach, widely adopted by scholars, mainly deals with the meaning, etymology of each euphemism and its relation to other terms, while offering no furtherinformation about euphemism. These analyses are specific and clear-cut as to what euphemisms are and how they are formed and classified but they all neglect the important fact that language and adequate account of language cannot be separated from its sociocultural and communicational context. Therefore, they often fail to tell us why and how euphemisms are originated in the first place; how the practice of euphemisms influences language and communication. To answer these questions, this dissertation poses a new approach, i. e. a sociolinguistic approach to the study of euphemisms. Inspired by the theoretical insights of modern linguists, we suggest a contextual theory to explore the creation and practice of euphemisms, and their diachronic and synchronic features. The major argument of this dissertation is: euphemism, as a sociocultural phenomenon, should be examined in its sociocultural and communicational context.This dissertation consists of five chapters:Chapter One is the introduction, which gives the definition, classification of euphemism and briefly introduces the importance of the study of euphemism from a sociolinguistic perspective and puts forward the argument of this dissertation.Chapter Two establishes the theoretical foundations for this study. Drawing a great many insights from modern linguists, notably Malinowski's social view of language, Halliday's notion of register, and Hymes' analysis of speech events, we suggest a contextual theory for the analysis of euphemisms in Chinese and English. This chapter serves as the basis for Chapter Three and Chapter Four, which form the core of this dissertation.Chapter Three discusses the creation and practice of traditional euphemism and stylistic euphemism with the help of the contextual framework. It is found that not only is the creation of euphemisms a natural consequence of the interaction between language and society, but also the practice of euphemisms cannot be isolated from the communicational context in which they are used. Any change of one or more factors of a communicational event, i. e. participants, setting, subject matter, medium, and purpose of conversations and attitudes of participants, will influence our decision of whether to use euphemism or not as well as when, where and how to use it. In addition, we conduct a diachronic and a synchronic analysis of euphemisms and find that which subjects and what portions ofthem are acceptable or forbidden vary from culture to culture and from one historical period to another within a single culture.Chapter Four takes a dialectical view to explore the sociocultural and linguistic influence of euphemism on language and communication. The influence on language can be traced at the phonetic, semantic and pragmatic level of language. Furthermore, euphemism serves two fundamental functions in...
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