A Pragmatic Study Of Euphemisms In American Presidents' Inaugural Addresses

Euphemism, a universal cultural and linguistic phenomenon, is a natural and indispensable part of English language. It is a form of language created in the early stage of human civilization to achieve ideal communication. It attracts great interests of many linguists and scholars who have studied it from the perspectives like semantics, rhetoric, culture or pragmatics etc. But most of their researches mainly study euphemisms from a broad perspective. This thesis is intended to do an empirical study and it analyzes euphemisms used in a specific field----Inaugural Addresses of American Presidents. H. P. Grice s Cooperative Principle (CP) and G. N. Leech s Politeness Principle (PP) function as the theoretical foundations of the present study. By doing so, this thesis hopes to enlarge the scope of euphemisms study from pragmatic perspective.Making addresses is important for human beings especially to those presidents because they deal with the relations between countries or regions etc, so the words that they use are more sensitive. Their addresses may even affect the relations between countries or the government images in its people, so the presidents, to meet a certain need, often use euphemisms as an effective instrument to violate some maxims of CP for observing the maxims of PP. In this thesis the writer tries to discover how maxims of CP are violated to observe PP in the Inaugural Addresses of American Presidents.This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One introduces the general information of euphemisms, including the definitions, classifications, functions and its formations. Chapter Two introduces the theoretical foundations of euphemisms. CP, the cornerstone theory of pragmatics, is brought forward in the 1960s by Paul Grice, an American linguistic philosopher, who concludes that natural language has its own logic. According to his theory, in making a conversation, the participants must be willing to cooperate; otherwise, it will not be possible for them to carry on the talk. Specifically, there are four maxims under this general principle: Quantity Maxim, Quality Maxim, Relevance Maxim and Manner Maxim. PP is proposed in 1980s by Geoffrey Leech, an English linguist, who regards politeness as a further development of the Face Theory and a supplement to CP. It is an important approach to minimize the expression of impolite beliefs and maximize the expression of polite ones. The maxims of PP include Tact Maxim, Generosity Maxim, Approbation Maxim, Modesty Maxim, Agreement Maxim and Sympathy Maxim. Chapter Three analyses euphemisms used in the four transcripts of the American Presidents' Inaugural Addresses from the perspective of CP and PP. We find that euphemisms are frequently used and they violate the Quality, Quantity, or Manner Maxim of CP, but basically they observe the maxims of PP. Chapter four explains the significance of this study, which may shed some light on the translation of euphemisms in the inter-cultural communication.This thesis is primarily concerned with the study of the usage of euphemisms in American Presidents Inaugural Addresses from the theoretical perspective of CP and PP. The main purpose is to discover how euphemistic effects are achieved in the use of English euphemisms with the hope to improve the interpretation or translation practice in the political field.