原型范畴理论视角下《绝望主妇》中的委婉语分析-an analysis of euphemism in desperate housewives from the perspective of prototype category theory.docxVIP

AbstractEuphemismisaverycommonlinguisticphenomenoninourdailylife.Therefore,itisextensivelyusedtogetridofimpoliteness,embarrassmentandsomeotherunpleasantentities.Itisnotexaggeratingtosaythateuphemismisasafeguardforpeopletoachievesuccessfulcommunication.TheimportanceofeuphemismmakesscholarsbothinwesterncountriesandinChinafocustheirattentiononthislinguisticphenomenonforalongperiodoftime.However,fewscholarsattempttoconnectthisspeciallinguisticphenomenonwithpeople?scognition,whichisademeritofpreviousstudies.Recently,cognitivelinguisticshasbecomeaprevalentbranchoflinguistics.Therefore,thisthesishasatrytocombineeuphemismwithpeople?scognitionandinterpretthislinguisticphenomenonwithintheframeworkofprototypetheory.Throughthisresearch,threeconclusionsaremade.Firstly,tabooanditscorrespondingeuphemismscanformacategory.Taboobelongstotheprototypebecauseitsharesmorefamilyresemblancefeaturesandrequiresfewercognitiveeffortstoprocess.However,euphemisticexpressionsactasperipheralmembers.Theyarenotsalientincognitionandneedmoretimetounderstand.Therefore,euphemisticexpressionscanhelppeopleachievesuccessfulcommunicationbyavoidingunpleasantsituations.Secondly,membersinonecategoryarenotstaticbutdynamic.Inotherwords,aeuphemisticexpressionmaycomenearerandnearertotheprototypeafterbeingusedfrequentlywhilesometaboosmaybecomecommonexpressionswithtimegoeson.Thirdly,therearethreecognitivemotivationsofproducingeuphemisticexpressions:theevolutionfromprototypicalmeaningtomarginalmeaning;thedecentralizationofprototypicalityinfamilyresemblance;thedestructionofgestaltstructure.Inconclusion,theauthorexpectsthatpeoplecanhaveadeeperunderstandingofthenatureofeuphemism.Keywords:Euphemism,Prototypetheory,DesperateHousewives摘要委婉语是一种非常常见的语言现象。在日常生活中，人们广泛使用委婉语来避免不礼貌、尴尬、以及一些令人不愉快的话题。毫不夸张地说，委婉语是人们实现成功交际的重要保障。委婉语的重要性使国内外的学者一直关注这一语言现象并且从不同的角度来对它进行研究。然而，前人的不足在于很少有学者将这一特殊的语言现象同人类的认知联系在一起。最近几年，认知语言学逐渐成为语言学界一个较流行的分支。因此，本文试图将委婉语与人们的认知结合起来，用原型范畴理论解释这一语言现象。通过研究，作者得出三个结论。首先，禁忌语和其相对应的委婉语能够形成一个范畴。因为禁忌语拥有较多的家族相似性、处理它们需要较小的认知努力，所