A Metonymic Approach To Euphemism And Its Generating Mechanism

Euphemism is a widespread language phenomenon and indispensable lubricant in language communication.Its proper employment can improve interpersonal relations so that the social communication goes smoothly.Enright(1985:29) once said,"[a]language without euphemisms would be a defective instrument of communication." Euphemism is an indirect expression,substituting indirect,vague,pleasant and mild words for more explicit and offensive ones,with the purpose of avoiding taboo,showing elegance or avoiding hurting other people's feelings.Euphemism as a social cultural phenomenon permeates many aspects in daily life,whose function is far beyond as a rhetorical device and arouses people's attention widely.The previous studies on euphemism involve such theoretical perspectives as rhetoric,traditional semantics, lexicography,sociolinguistics,psycholinguistics,cross-cultural communication,vague linguistics,and pragmatics.All the aspects mentioned above have achieved great success.With the naissance and development of cognitive linguistics,many scholars have tried to investigate into euphemism from the perspective of cognitive linguistics such as Wang Yongzhong(2003), Shao Junhang & Fan Weiwei(2004),Lu Weizhong & Kong Shujuan(2006).This thesis mainly expounds euphemism and its generating mechanism within the framework of conceptual metonymy.Based on an introduction to the definition,functions and characteristics of euphemism, the author of this thesis attempts to account for euphemism and its generating devices in light of the theory of conceptual metonymy.Rhetoricians used to take metonymy as a figure of speech, which is the substitution of one thing for another.According to cognitive linguistics,however, metonymy is an important way of thinking and a vital means for human beings to understand the objective world.In light of the theory of conceptual metonymy,it can be found out that many euphemisms are generated in the framework of conceptual metonymy in daily life.The generation manifests itself in two ways:within the same cognitive domain,the whole substitutes for the parts and vice versa;one part substitutes for another part.There are many generating devices of euphemism,and in this thesis the author mainly generalizes them into the following six types:phonetic devices,lexical devices,grammatical devices,pragmatic devices, nonverbal devices,and interaction between verbal devices and nonverbal devices.It is concluded that for each generating device,the relationship between the form of euphemism and its referent is a replaceable relationship of conceptual metonymy,which proves that conceptual metonymy can account for euphemism and its generating mechanism efficiently.Finally,the thesis deals with the importance and implications of this study for TEFL and the translation of euphemism.