A Study Of Causes And Strategies Of Pragmatic Failures Of Euphemism

Euphemism is a common phenomenon in all languages. It touches all aspects of social life and plays a very important role in communication. With the development of intercultural communication, euphemisms are more and more adopted by people from different countries. Because of cultural differences, many pragmatic failures of euphemism take place and make intercultural communication unsuccessful. Some pragmatic failures provoke misunderstanding and even hostility. Therefore, the research on euphemism is of great significance and pragmatic value. In this thesis some questions about pragmatic failures of euphemism are discussed. They may help remove pragmatic failures of euphemism and smooth the intercultural communication. In this thesis, principles guiding the use of euphemism are firstly studied. Then based on the theory of pragmatic failure proposed by Thomas, pragmatic failures of euphemism are discussed from two aspects: 1. Causes of pragmatic failures of euphemism; 2. Strategies to deal with pragmatic failures of euphemism.The Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle are two basic guiding principles in communication. To meet a certain need, people often flout some maxims of the Cooperative Principle in order to show politeness. Besides these two principles, the Face Theory is also studied in this thesis. In order to save one's own face and avoid losing face, people usually use euphemism.According to Thomas' theory, there are two kinds of pragmatic failure. One is pragmalinguistic failure and the other is sociopragmatic failure. Pragmalinguistic failure refers to the failures caused by pronunciation, words and grammar. Sociopragmatic failure refers to the failures resulting from cultural differences. This thesis mainly focuses in study on the latter.The first cause of pragmatic failure of euphemism studied in this thesis is social value. Social value is the core of culture. The diversity of social values existing between English and Chinese leads to many pragmatic failures of euphemism. The second cause of pragmatic failures analyzed in this thesis is taboo. Taboo is the original motivation of euphemism. Inadequate knowledge of different taboos also leads to pragmatic failures of euphemism. The third cause that results in pragmatic failures of euphemism is the context which has a great influence on the use of euphemism. The author has a detailed discussion about it through cultural context and situational context.However, the thesis is not limited to the analysis of the causes of pragmatic failures of euphemism. The discussion of the strategies dealing with pragmatic failures of euphemism is another focus. As culture has a great influence on the use of euphemism, we should increase the awareness of cultural difference and try to familiarize with foreign cultures. We should also strengthen the contrast between English culture and Chinese culture to disclose cultural differences so as to decrease pragmatic failures of euphemism in intercultural communication. What's more, to have a better understanding of context is also a good way to use euphemism appropriately.