Political Euphemism: Classification, Mechanism And Principle

Political euphemism—euphemism used in political activities—is determined according to the scope of the euphemism usage. Because of the specialty and sensitivity of the political realm, political euphemism has seldom been seriously carried out so far by scholars in our country. This thesis takes the modern Chinese political euphemism as the research object so as to study its functions and further, taking which as the classification criterion, to explore generation mechanisms of the political euphemism as well as the principles that are abide by when the speaker generates political euphemism.Political euphemism under investigation in this thesis includes two aspects: (1) those that are used by governments, political parties, social groups, and individuals in political activities; (2) those that are used by common people in discussing political activities.In political activities, the functions of euphemism are manifested as follows:(1) to change people's emotional orientation to something ; (2) to vindicate the images of the governments; (3) to cover up true facts; (4) to give excuses to others'requests; (5) to avoid mentioning malfeasant and ignominious behaviors; (6) to reduce contradictions and conflicts; (7) to keep away from the sensitive topics.Political euphemism exhibiting various functions is the result of the addressor's information processing. Combined with related theories in cognitive psychology and cognitive pragmatics, this thesis manages to reveal the generation mechanisms of political euphemism.