The Cognitive Mechanism Of Euphemism: A Study From The Perspective Of The Inheritance Of Denotation And Connotation Theory And Intentionality Theory

Euphemism is a common phenomenon that exists in social society. Its uses can be foundeverywhere in human language. It is not only a figure of speech, but a kind of culturalphenomenon as well. As a cultural phenomenon, euphemism penetrates into every aspect of ourlife. The American scholar Rawson (1981) once said that no one can spend a day without usingeuphemism, even those who profess themselves to be frank persons.Euphemism is so important in our life that researchers have done a lot of research oneuphemism from different perspectives. From existing research on euphemism at home andabroad, we can see that its focuses deal chiefly with its classification, motivation, characteristics,constitution, and pragmatic effects, etc. which are mainly from the figure of speech perspective,the cultural and sociolinguistic perspective, the pragmatic perspective, etc. Until recently, someresearchers have started to study euphemism from the cognitive perspective, proposing thateuphemism is a kind of substitution and that the formation of euphemism is metonymic in nature.But as for the reasons for the taking place of such substitution and the specific generative processof euphemism, researchers do not make any explanation. Aiming at these questions, this thesistries to further explain the inner generative mechanism of euphemism and its whole inheritingprocess between speaker and hearer with of denotation and connotation theory and intentionalitytheory.The denotation and connotation theory is constructed from the perspectives of cognition andmental activities, which regards language as a reflection of mental activities, rather than as asubject researched into in philosophy. The inner generations of language phenomenon have beenexplained to some extent by this theory. The phenomenon of metaphor and metonymy has beenexplained by this theory to some extent. Euphemism is a special language phenomenon, whoseformation is metonymic in nature. Thus, TIDC can be adopted for the detailed account ofeuphemism to further explain its generation to some extent. Intentionality theory is a conceptiontheory in mental philosophy, which holds that intention exists in all human communication andthat communication will be meaningless if there is no intention. Euphemism is no exception. Wecombine these two theories together, trying to explore how to make sure the successfulgeneration and conveyance of euphemism between speaker and hearer.This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter One gives a general introduction. It sketchesout what this thesis intends to analyze, points out the significance of the study and presents theorganization of the thesis. Chapter Two is a literature review of the study of euphemism, which ismainly from the figure of speech perspective, the cultural and sociolinguistic perspective, thepragmatic perspective and cognitive perspective. Chapters Three, Four and Five constitute the main part of this study. Chapter Three explains the theory of inheritance of denotation andconnotation (TIDC) and theory of intentionality, which lay theoretical foundation for furtherstudy of euphemism. Chapter Four chooses several examples of euphemism from differentcategories, which are analyzed through TIDC, concluding that the substitution and positiveeffects of euphemism can be explained by TIDC to some extent. Chapter Five analyzes someexamples of euphemism with the intentionality theory, concluding that during the wholesuccessful inheriting process of euphemism, intentionality is the premise. Speakers have to makesure that the intention content of a euphemistic expression also exist in hearers’“type hierarchystructure”. Only in this way can euphemism inherits according to its denotations andconnotations. Then the hearer can understand the euphemism speaker conveys. Thus, euphemismrealizes its successful conveyance between speaker and hearer. Context plays an invisible role inthis process. It proposes three steps involved in the successful conveyance of euphemism tobetter present the inheriting process at the end of this chapter. The last Chapter is the concludingpart. It first presents the main findings drawn from the analysis in the thesis, then it states theimplications of this study, and finally it points out the limitations of this research and gives somesuggestions for further research.