A Study Of Political Euphemism In Obama’s Speeches From The Perspective Of Adaptation-Relevance Model

Euphemism has been studied for a long time, while the research on the particularpart-the political euphemism has not attracted much attention and effort. Most of theresearches on political euphemism are mainly limited on the application andcommunicative principles. Less attention has been paid on the language using processfor it has a lack of theoretical basis.Consequently, this paper aims to validate the rationality of Adaptation-RelevanceModel through the Obama’s Speeches. Based on the speeches of Obama and with thesupport of the Adaptation-Relevance model proposed by Ran Yongping, this paper hasdone a tentative research on political euphemism. Adaptation-Relevance model, whichis considered to be a comprehensive communicative model, proposes that verbalcommunication is a contextual inter-adapted dynamic process of optimal relevance. Themodel has the following arguments: communication is relevance-oriented, relevance isthe basic activity of human cognize; the presumption of relevance determines thelanguage choice; the process of verbal communication is a dynamic inter-adaptationbetween linguistic choice and contextual correlates; the process ofAdaptation-Relevance includes choosing strategies.This paper is divided into five chapters. The development and research status ofeuphemism and political euphemism are reviewed in the first two chapters. Theevolution of the theoretical frame of language use has been described in detail in chapterand also the comments of each model have been given in Chapter three. From theperspective of Adaptation-Relevance model, Chapter made an analysis of the politicaleuphemism used in Obama’s speeches from the following aspects: political euphemismis relevance-oriented; the presumption of relevance determines the choice of euphemism;the process of using political euphemism is a dynamic inter-adaptation betweenlinguistic choice and contextual correlates; the strategy choosing in political speeches.Based on Adaptation-Relevance model and the study on Obama’s political speeches,this paper tries to reveal the deep implication of political euphemism and give fullsupport of how the language strategies are adopted by the president with the goal ofattracting the public. Finally, in Chapter five, the paper gives a conclusion andsuggestion that:1.the relevance is the necessary condition of the successfulcommunication and the adaptation is the regulatory mechanism of the successful communication. But cooperation between the utterer and the interpreter should be theimportant prerequisite to ensure a communication smoothly process. Therefore, a newmodel “Cooperative-Adaptation-Relevance” could be adopted for future study onEnglish political euphemism;2. in order to make the Adaptation-Relevance model moreconvincing, more comprehensive data could be collected for a qualitative study;3.Adaptation-Relevance model can be used for explaining more language phenomena tomake itself more satisfactory and convincing.