A Study Of English Euphemisms Under The Guidance Of Prototype Category Theory

Euphemism is a common phenomenon in daily life. It plays a very important role in regulating interpersonal relationships as the lubricant of language. Euphemisms are the mild, agreeable, or roundabout words or expressions used in place of coarse or offensive ones. Studies of euphemisms are countless these years, which are mainly conducted from the perspectives of lexicography, semantics, pragmatics, psychology and etc. This thesis takes the view that prototype theory can well explain how euphemistic effects are achieved, thus the thesis mainly applies the prototype theory to analyze the English euphemisms in order to enrich our understanding of euphemisms.