| Euphemism is a common phenomenon in languages. It has a great effect on daily communication. From the moment of its emergence, euphemism functions to avoid taboos, to show politeness and to conceal feelings. People use euphemism because they fear something, because they want to save face or because they strongly incline to avoid talking about something. With the development of modern society, it has become an indispensable element in people's interactions.Euphemism has long been a focus of interest in linguistic circle, and a considerable amount of literature on euphemisms has been accumulating. Usually, euphemisms are confined to rhetorical speech and are regarded as a literal technique for writers or speakers to give their expressions more elegantly. Few studies make systematic research on euphemisms from pragmatic perspective. Thus on the basis of other scholars' researches, I will attempt to do a tentative study in this new area.This thesis aims to analyze euphemisms with the fundamental theories of pragmatics, showing the relationship between euphemisms and pragmatics in the hope that it may be of some help for English learners as well as teachers. It is organized as follows:Chapter one, as a general introduction to English euphemisms, it surveys various sorts of definitions of euphemisms, explores its origin,deals with its classifications, analyzes the devices of euphemism-formation, and presents its social functions.Chapter two, by employing Speech Act Theory, expounds the nature of euphemism-indirectness. Meanwhile, it is claimed that although some euphemisms can not be understood directly or literally, yet with support of context they needn't take more effort or more time to comprehend than literal language.Chapter three and four combine to analyze euphemisms from pragmatic perspectives. Grice's Cooperative Principle and Conversational Implicature, Leech's Politeness Principle, Brown & Levinson's Face Theory are cited to talk about it. Meanwhile, the role of context in understanding pragmatic euphemism is strengthened. It turns out that though violating the Cooperative Principle, euphemism is closely related to the Politeness Principle, Indirect Speech Act Theory and Face Theory.Chapter five concerns the implications of my study and ventures to propose some suggestions for English teachers and learners in China, especially from pragmatic perspective as follows: (1) Since euphemisms not only include words and phrases, but also refer to the linguistic phenomenon with conversational implicature, teachers should take the teaching of language beyond the realms of mere linguistic training.Teachers shoulder the task of helping students to understand the way pragmatic principles operate in other cultures. They should be held responsible for students to draw on insights from theoretical pragmatics and develop ways of heightening and refining students' metapragmatic awareness - the ability to analyze language use in a conscious manner, so that they are able to express themselves as they choose, and their English would be not only grammatically accurate but also socially acceptable. (2) Euphemism, as a common linguistic phenomenon, share some cultural universals on one hand; on the other hand, it is culture-specific. It is deep-rooted in a nation's cultural environment, having an inherent association with the nation's history, customs, values, national character, etc., reflecting certain attitudes, behaviors and values, and reinforcing certain lifestyles and philosophies. The cultural characteristics of euphemisms remind us that a familiarity with the cultural background of euphemisms is essential to the decoding of euphemisms. (3) Since euphemism has the characteristic of "metabolism", and the speed of supersession is fast, the dynamic feature of euphemism should also be taken into consideration.Chapter six sums up the findings in the study and identifies its implications for English teachers as well as learners in China.This tentative study is an initial endeavor to investigate Engl...
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