An Application Study Of English Euphemism

Euphemism is a common language and culture phenomenon, it exists in differentsocial groups and classes, at the same time, it is a means pf expression which iscommonly used for social communication. English euphemism has a long cultural andhistorical background, in Europe, especially, in contemporary America, people alwaysuse indirect way or speak words of fulsome praise to avoid occurring unpleasant orembarrassing scene during the communication. With the high development of thesociety and improvement of people’s whole cultural quality, euphemism is frequentlyused a in people’s daily communication and plays a more and more important role insocial life. Euphemism play such an important role, because it can maintain goodrelationship in social communication, therefore research on English euphemism has arealistic significance.At early1980s, western scholars began to focus on research of EnglishEuphemism, Neaman and Silver discussed euphemism explicitly in the dictionary ofKind words--A Treasure of the Euphemism Euphemism(1983), including the origin,production, development and change of euphemism. The most important study madeby Allen and Burridge, they completed Euphemism and Dyphemism together, theyexpound how to study euphemism from the perspective of pragmatics, to the analysisof English Euphemism, this dictionary has important reference value for future study.Since the20th century, many domestic linguists study study euphemism fromdifferent angles, such as sociolinguistics, psychology, lexicology, semantics,pragmatics, rhetoric. With the development of times, the usage of euphemism not onlyembodied in words, but also in sentence and discourse, and tended to its practicalapplication.In1986, Sperber&Wilson put forward Relevance Theory in book----Relevance: Communication and Cognition, Relevance Theory includes the cognitive principle,communicative principle, the contextual effect and processing effort, etc. This thesistakes Relevance theory as theoretical support, this thesis intends to illustrate how tounderstand the application and pragmatic functions of English euphemism within theframework of Relevance theory.The research method of this paper is a descriptive research method. According tothe existing phenomenon of euphemism as well as the Relevance Theory, analyzingEnglish euphemism in the film from the view of Relevance Theory, after the author’sunderstanding and verification, come to the conclusion.Ostensive-inferential, communicative principle of relevance, contextual effects,processing efforts of Relevance Theory can fully explain English euphemism in film,but except cognitive principle of relevance, the conclusion can be summarized thefollowing four aspects:Ostensive-inferential is a core center of Relevance Theory, it mainly states themanifest process between speaker and hearer. Ostension relates to speaker, it refersthat the speaker intends to deliver stimulus signal(informative intention andcommunicative intention).Inference relates hearer, it refers that hearer intends to inferthe communicative intention of the speaker through the informative intention of thespeaker. In film Emma, for example, suppose a euphemistic sentence is used betweenEmma and Harriet, Emma is the speaker, Harriet is the hearer. Emma tries to send aneuphemistic signal to Harriet, for euphemism is an ostensive act, it contains thesurface meaning and deep meaning, in other words, it contains information intentionand communication intention, informative intention will cause a series of contextualassumption in Harriet’s mind, Harriet tries to find the relevance of stimulation signal.If Harriet could reason out the relevance of utterance, therefore producing contextualeffect, so as to achieve the aim of communication.Cognitive principle and communicative principle are two principles of relevance,the cognitive principle believe cognitive activity of human being gear with maximalrelevance, it pursues the maximal relevance, it requires the hearer to pay least processing effort and get the greatest contextual effect. Because euphemism is a kindof indirect way, in film Emma, the heroine needs to pay greater efforts to find therelevance of utterance in understanding of euphemism, so euphemism is not able toobtain maximal relevance. Communicative principle refers that every act of ostensivecommunication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance, ostensivecommunicative behavior refers that the utterance conveyed by the speaker who wantsto arouse the attraction of the speaker, though euphemism is a vague expression,euphemism itself hopes that the utterance conveyed can arouse the hearer’s enoughattention, thus the English euphemism has optimal relevance in the film.Contextual effect is inseparable with New information and existing cognitivecontext, Contextual effect produced from three ways, the first one, interactionbetween new information and context, the second one, new information may offerfurther evidence so as to strengthen the existing cognitive context, the third one, newinformation may contradict with the existing cognitive effects, therefore may abandonthe existing cognitive effects. Because of English euphemism is also a kind of explicitbehavior, that is to say English euphemism also can produce three types of contextualeffectProcessing effort is an important component of achieving relevance of utterance,no matter how much efforts paid, as long as the achieving relevance, it can getcontextual effect, achieving communicative goal,in general, the processing effort isinversely proportional to the correlation, the greater the effort, the smaller therelevance, and vice versa. Because English euphemism is a kind of implicitexpression, in film Emma, it needs to pay greater efforts in the process ofunderstanding euphemism.There exists four pragmatic functions of euphemism in the film, they are evasivefunction, polite function, modest function and humorous function.1）Evasive function relates to taboo, mainly instead of embarrassing words, forexample, replace some words, such as old, disease, death, etc.2）Polite function refers that people should be polite during communication, avoiding occurrence of some embarrassing situation, using some implicit, comfortable,elegant euphemisms to replace direct, uncomfortable, the vulgar words, reflecting agood upbringing of the speaker, achieving communicative purpose.3）Modest function of euphemism, is a way to show a sense of modesty anddeliberately reduce his or her ability.4）Humor function refers to people who use humorous language to avoidembarrassing situation.A lot of scholars try to study English euphemism from the perspective ofRelevance Theory, but specially there are few studies made on English euphemism inthe film under the framework of Relevance Theory, the author hopes that this thesiscan give the new angle for scholars to study film, pouring into new energy. It not onlyembodies the Relevance Theory, but also has the great explanatory power foreuphemism. And it also helps English learners to understand formation and practicalapplication of the English euphemism correctly, to enhance their abilities of languageapplication and the level of reading and appreciation in English learning, at the sametime, it can help people to use euphemism in real life, so as to avoid generatingembarrassment or unpleasant situation.