A Sociolinguistic And Dynamic Approach To Euphemism

Euphemism, as a common phenomenon in all languages, has been increasingly arousing interest of many linguists and scholars. Most studies have been approached mainly from the perspectives of rhetorical, psychological and linguistic. These researches have made great contributions to euphemism study, but they all neglect the important fact that the account of language can never be separated from its social and cultural context. Based on the previous achievements and their limitations, this thesis poses a new approach, i.e. a sociolinguistic and dynamic analysis of euphemism.Euphemism as a linguistic concept is also a social and cultural phenomenon. To have a more scientific study of euphemism, it is necessary to take social, psychological and cultural factors into account and regard euphemism as a dynamic linguistic phenomenon. After giving a redefinition of euphemism from a sociolinguistic perspective and a brief account of the features, classification and social functions of euphemism, the thesis has a detailed analysis of euphemism with the sociolinguistic theory of culture and context.Culture covers all aspects of human life and is closely related to all human beings' behaviors, including linguistic behavior. Language reflects culture and euphemism is a mirror of culture. The thesis analyzes euphemisms in Chinese and English with a comparative study of two cultures and concludes that people in different cultures tend to show similarities and differences in using euphemisms. The theory of linguistic context suggests that the meanings of some euphemisms can only be understood and learned with reference to its relationship with other words in the same context. Besides, euphemisms are largely determined by the environment and extra-linguistic factors as what situational context indicates.A further analysis of euphemism is taken with a dynamic approach. Euphemism varies over time, space and across societies. People of different gender, age and social class tend to differ in using euphemisms and there are different forms of euphemisms when the use varies. In modern language, there is a tendency of abuse of stylistic euphemisms.