A Contrastive Study Of New Euphemisms In English And Chinese

As a significant aspect of language, euphemisms have attracted linguists'attention for a long time. Euphemisms are studied in disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, socio-linguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis by both linguists at home and abroad, yet so far there has been no systematic investigation of Chinese and English new euphemisms. This thesis is a tentative endeavor to synthesize the merits and to make up for the deficiencies of the achievements in euphemism studies thus far made in China, focusing on formation of new euphemisms, the relationship between new euphemisms and three pragmatic principles, and the source, psychological base, cultural embodiment and social background of new euphemisms. To address the above-mentioned topics, a contrastive approach is employed.In this thesis, we firstly present the formation of new euphemisms in both English and Chinese and point out some new forming methods of Chinese new euphemisms. Then, we explore the relationship between euphemisms in English and Chinese and three pragmatic principles, with a conclusion that these two types of euphemisms, whether new or old, adhere to the Politeness Principle and the Self-defense Principle, on the basis of violating the Cooperative Principle, though there naturally exist some differences as euphemisms are the products of different cultures as...