An Analysis About The Use Of English Euphemism From The Perspective Of Politeness Principle

As it is known, modern society pays great attention to interpersonal communication, for appropriate communication can earn others’recognition. In order to achieve this goal, people would take various strategies, euphemism is no doubt one of these strategies.Euphemism exists in all society, and is traditionally regarded as a rhetoric concept. With the development of society and linguistics, the scope of euphemisms extends from a linguistic phenomenon to a social and cultural phenomenon. And it plays a significant part in people’s everyday communication. It is the non-direct expressions or utterances for the things which bring the information organizer and interpreter pains such as reverence, fear, shame, discomfort, etc. and which is formed by using phonetic, semantic and grammatical methods. Briefly speaking, it refers to the polite and friendly expressions that take the place of the ones which might make people feel uncomfortable or embarrassed.Based on Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Leech proposed his great pragmatic theory—Politeness Principle, which has been widely accepted in the field of pragmatics. To say it briefly, Politeness Principle is:Other things being equal minimize the expression of impolite beliefs and maximize the expression of polite belief. There are six maxims in this principle:Tact Maxim, Generosity Maxim, Approbation Maxim, Modesty Maxim, Agreement Maxim and Sympathy Maxim. These maxims offer a good explanation of why some utterances are polite, while others not.With development of society, more and more researchers begin their study in euphemisms from different aspects, such as studies on the translation, studies on the euphemism in commercial letters, or studies from the perspective of cross-culture. All these researches improve people’s understanding of euphemisms. In recent years, there are some scholars made their efforts to study euphemism from the perspective of pragmatics. Based on the previous exploration and research, this paper will make an analysis of euphemism from the perspective of Politeness Principle and propose some suggestion in English teaching.This research paper is mainly an exploration of English euphemism from the perspective of Politeness Principle. People tend to employ the indirect expressions to describe something in order to avoid taboo, show politeness or disguise something. Therefore, euphemism is one of the methods that people use to achieve smooth communication. By using euphemism, people are, in fact, adhering to Leech’s Politeness Principle.This research paper includes seven chapters. Chapter one introduces the research background, research objective and organization of the paper. Chapter two focuses on euphemism, including previous studies made before and its definition, origin, classification, formation and motives for euphemism. Chapter three is mainly about the development of Politeness Principle and the six maxims of Leech’s Politeness Principle. Chapter four is an analysis of how euphemism proves the six maxims works. The next chapter lists some euphemisms in the field of politics, commerce and military and analyzes how they works. Chapter six is mainly about the euphemism in English teaching. From a simple survey and attending English class, it can be seen that most teachers and students agree that euphemism are necessary in English teaching, so that students’face and dignity can be protected, and then some suggestion of how to employ euphemisms in English teaching will be offered. The last chapter makes a conclusion and points out limitations of this research paper.