Pragmatic Enrichment Of Euphemisms In TV Interview Programs

This study is intended to conduct a systematic analysis of the pragmatic enrichment inthe understanding of euphemisms employed by the hosts in TV interview programs from theperspective of Pragmatic Enrichment.Pragmatic enrichment refers to a process in which the meanings of words and structuresare specified by the communicators in accordance with concrete context. This processinvolves pragmatic narrowing and pragmatic broadening. Thereinto, pragmatic narrowingcovers the narrowing of polysemy, superordinate and other kind of narrowing. The pragmaticbroadening of host euphemisms is mainly analyzed from three aspects: approximation,metaphorical extension and category extension. Based on this classification, this study makesa detailed and systematic analysis of pragmatic enrichment involving in the listeners’understanding of host euphemisms with the aid of typical examples in TV interview programas Yang Lan One on One and Kevin Hour.The results of this study show that (1) In TV interview program, at the mention ofsensitive topics like death, emotional issues, diseases or other negative information, the hostusually chooses indirect and vague expression to avoid making the hearer feel uncomfortableand embarrassed so that the communication can move on smoothly;(2) The comprehension ofeuphemisms is a process of pragmatic enrichment, in the process of understanding aneuphemism, first one is supposed to make some inference with the help of the utterance andcontextual information and then narrow/broaden its encoded meaning, only in this way canthe communicative meaning of euphemisms be achieved.