A Study On English Euphemism In Business Correspondence From Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Euphemism is a common but important linguistic and cultural phenomenon in communication. It is also a communicative strategy. Euphemism, which has been widely used in communication, plays a significant part in communication. Appropriate usage of euphemism can help people to successfully get a better effect in communication thus can help achieve the goals of communication.Up to now, many scholars at home and abroad have made lots of researches and studies in the field of euphemism from various perspectives and have obtained lots of achievements. However, most of these previous studies tend to mostly be related to rhetoric, grammar, lexicon level and few studies make systematic researches from the angle of pragmatics. Therefore, this thesis attempts to conduct a tentative study of euphemism on the basis of a new theory of adaptation, put forward by Verschueren, the Belgian pragmaticist. He proposed a new idea that pragmatics is a perspective on language, and he tries to present the important role of cognitive, social and cultural factors played in the pragmatics study, thus it provides a comprehensive and scientific perspective for pragmatics study.In addition, many of the studies and researches of the euphemism are mainly concerned with the field of daily English communication, while in this thesis the present study of euphemism employment is elaborated by providing many examples selected from business English correspondence and students' exercise. Business English correspondence, as one of the main ways of communication, is becoming more and more important. Euphemism appears frequently in business correspondence. Thus this thesis tries to study the euphemism in business letters, based on the author's teaching practice in reality, and tries to discuss the problems and strategies in the teaching of business letter writing. It is hoped that the study will produce great practical value in improving teaching ability in business courses.The thesis is organized as follows:Chapter One is the introduction. It presents the need, objectives, methodology and organization of the study.Chapter Two is the literature review. It makes the literature review of euphemism and the business English correspondence in details. Firstly, it gives a general knowledge about the definition of euphemism. Then it makes a review about the previous studies on English euphemism from pragmatic perspective, presenting in details the basic pragmatic principles, including Politeness Principle, Face Theory and Indirect Speech Act Theory. For the part of business correspondence, it presents the classifications and basic writing rules of business letter writing and introduces the previous study on euphemism in this field.Chapter Three is the theoretical framework. It elaborated on the theoretical background for the analyses of euphemism. The present study is based on the Belgian pragmaticist Jef Verschueren's theory of adaptation (2000). This theory tries to explore the significance of cognitive, social and cultural elements in the pragmatics studies thus can understand pragmatics from a new angle. Verschueren suggests that the language use actually is a continuous process of making linguistic choices. The adaptation theory contains four angles of investigation, including contextual correlates of adaptation, structural objects of adaptation, dynamics of adaptation, and salience of the adaptation process. In the thesis, contextual correlates of adaptation and structural objects of adaptation are applied to the analysis on the euphemisms in business English correspondence.Chapter Four makes a detailed analysis on euphemism in business English correspondence based on the theoretical framework. Based on Adaptation Theory, this part tries to point out that euphemism in business correspondence has the adaptation to contextual correlates and adaptation to structural objects.Chapter Five tries to discuss implications on teaching of euphemism in business English correspondence based on Adaptation Theory. It selects students'writing as examples, tries to point out the mistakes and teach students to make adaptation to reader's mental, social and physical world.Chapter Six is the conclusion, which summarizes the major findings and the limitations of the study and also tries to provide some suggestions for further study.Based on adaptation theory, the study analyzes euphemism in business English correspondence and its teaching in business letter writing. It aims at helping business people improve their writing ability, meanwhile, drawing teachers'highly attention to the teaching of euphemism in business English correspondence writing.