The Interpretation Of Euphemisms From The Perspective Of Conceptual Integration Theory

Originated in the ancient Greece, euphemism, as a universal linguistic phenomenon, plays an indispensable role in language communications in our daily life. It is no doubt that it can smooth human communication and straighten interpersonal relationship among people. A good many linguists both home and abroad have done a lot of research on the euphemism from a variety of perspectives, mainly focusing on the domain of rhetoric, traditional semantics, pragmatics and sociolinguistics and have made much progress. However, few have dealt with its applied features from its motivation of creating reason and its cognition of understanding process. In the cognitive perspective, all languages including euphemisms are viewed as expressions of cognition, concepts and thought, not just as expressions of a language. This paper will do further research on the meaning construction and the understanding mechanism of the euphemism, which will enrich the euphemism study from the cognitive linguistic approach.Initiated in the late 1990s, Conceptual Integration Theory, as a new division of the western cognitive linguistics, has taken active hits in recent years, and its powerful abilities to elaborate the language phenomenon has become hot issues and attracted many linguists all over the world. The theory gives a new view of the language meaning built from mental space, cognitive model and mechanism. Conceptual Integration Theory is structured on the conceptual integration network: two input spaces, generic space, and blended space. The process of the conceptual integration can be classified into three stages: composition, completion and elaboration. After blending with processes above and relating to the relevant background knowledge, the construction of concept or meaning is accomplished. Conceptual Integration Theory has tremendous power to explain almost every aspect of language meaning construction and can be applied to explain almost every aspect of a language. Indeed, Conceptual Integration Theory has been widely used to interpret many language phenomena from pure semantics to the compound of words and utterances, and has provided a new view for the cognitive world.This paper attempts to discuss a cognitive law of understanding euphemism under the framework of the conceptual integration theory, and interprets its meaning construction process and its comprehension mechanism. Moreover, the paper hopes that this study may arouse the interest of other scholars in further investigation of meaning construction of euphemism in the application of Conceptual Integration Theory.