英语委婉语之剖析.docVIP

英语委婉语之剖析 　　Abstract::This paper was written as a class term paper in 1998, while the writer was doing graduate study in TESL at Silliman University, Philippines. In this paper the writer presents a study on English euphemism from perspectives of earlier writers so as to provide a fairly full study for those who conduct the area of English euphemism. 　　Key words: Study; English Euphemism; Perspectives of Earlier Writers 　　 　　What’s euphemism? According to the definition of Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1978 ), euphemism is the use of a pleasanter, less direct name for something thought to be unpleasant. Euphemism is the substitution of a pleasant term for a blunt onetelling it like it isn’t ( editor of Time ). The term comes from the Greek eu, meaning “ well” or “sounding good”, and pheme “ speech”. 　　A British gets up from the table, explaining that he has to go to the cloakroom; a young woman announces that she is enceinte; an undertaker ( or mortician ) asks delicately where to ship the loved one. These are euphemismsmild, agreeable, or roundabout words used in place of coarse, painful, of offensive ones ( Hugh, 1981). 　　People use euphemisms when they want to avoid talking directly or carefully disguised when they speak about subjects that make them uncomfortable. They conceal the things people fear the mostdeath, disease, the supernatural. They cover up the facts of life of sex and reproduction and excretion. Hence elaborate phrases are to be found among many types of people, civilized and uncivilized, to avoid use of the simple word “die”. They use euphemisms like passing on or passing away or being taken away.In The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford examines the semantic environment of the funeral industry and finds: 　　A whole new terminology, as ornately shoddy as the satin rayon casket liner, has been invented by the funeral industry to replace the direct and serviceable vocabulary of former times. Undertaker has been supplanted by