A Study Of Euphemism In Downton Abbey From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

As an indirect linguistic behavior, euphemism is a common phenomenon, which is widely used by people in ordinary life. It is an important strategy to coordinate interpersonal relationship. It’s necessary for us to communicate with others in our daily life. Euphemism can conceal some unhappy, embarrassing and face-threatening things in speech communication. By the usage of euphemism, people can avoid doing harm caused by direct words. As a sort of “lubricant” in language communication, euphemism helps to save face of communicators. That is to say, the employment of euphemism can improve the effect of communication and maintain harmonious interpersonal relationship.Both eastern and western scholars have been studying English euphemism for a long time and some exciting achievements have been made both at home and abroad, but the scope of the previous study has been mainly restricted to the level of lexicon. English euphemism in specific context has been studied by few people. Pragmatics is to put utterances into certain context and to explain how language is used in different contexts.Based on the previous study, on the basis of Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory, this paper attempts to study euphemism from the perspective of Pragmatics and to explain how euphemism adapts to contexts. More specifically, how the application of euphemism is influenced and constrained by communicative contexts such as the language users, mental world, social world and discuss how to use proper euphemism in communication. The study of euphemism in communicative context is to help know more about people’s thoughts, their language and culture, to help dispel cultural barriers and shed light on intercultural communication. As for the organization of the thesis, it consists of five chapters. Chapter One is the introduction, including research background, objective and significance. Chapter Two reviews the literature of euphemism, which gives the definition, origins and classification of English euphemism. Chapter Three discusses Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory, the theoretical framework of this paper. And Chapter Four is the main part of the whole study. It gives an analysis of how euphemism adapts to communicative context with some examples. As a case study, this paper will analyze the application of euphemism in a popular British series, the first three seasons of Downton Abbey. Some daily talks in British life are chosen and analyzed from the pragmatic view. Through the analysis of specific examples, we can find the features of English euphemism: the choice of English euphemism in communication activities is the result of adaptation to language users, the mental world, the social world and the physical world. And Chapter Five is the conclusion, which summarizes the whole paper, pointing out the guiding significance of practical life and giving some suggestions for further research on English euphemism.In this thesis, euphemism has been studied from a new and comprehensive pragmatic perspective, which may help people comprehend, apply and acquire this speech act better and achieve successful communication. Of course, though a number of studies on euphemism have been made, much of it still remains to be explored for further study.