A Study On Euphemisms In Workplace Reality Shows From The Perspective Of Rapport Management Theory

Interpersonal relationship has always been an important subject in interpersonal communication.How to avoid impolite communication and maintain harmonious interpersonal relationship is of great significance in the research of various disciplines.Euphemisms are indirect and polite expressions employed to avoid embarrassment and show respect.Therefore,euphemisms have become important means to build harmonious interpersonal relationships.In recent years,scholars at home and abroad have conducted many researches on euphemisms in literary works,advertisements,and political speeches from different perspectives.Such as lexicology,rhetoric,sociology,and pragmatics.However,there are few researches on euphemisms in workplace reality shows.Therefore,there is still some space to study euphemism from the perspective of interpersonal pragmatics.This thesis,based on previous researches,combing qualitative with quantitative research method,selecting the domestic workplace reality show《令人心动的offer》（）as the research corpus,attempts to employ Hellen Spenser Oatey’s rapport management theory and politeness principle to categorize euphemisms according to their referring scopes,referring objects and formation methods,and explains how communicators use euphemisms to manage their interpersonal relationships in workplace reality shows.This research mainly explores the following three questions:（1）What are the formations of euphemisms in workplace reality shows?（2）How do different euphemisms in workplace reality shows maintain or enhance social relations by acting on face and social rights?（3）What factors in rapport management theory can affect people’s choice of euphemisms?The research results show that communicators mainly adopt phonetic,semantic,grammatical and pragmatic ways to form euphemisms.In the workplace reality shows,influenced by politeness principle,workplace context,traditional culture,power relations,rapport orientation and message content,communicators choose and use different degrees of euphemisms to maintain or enhance the interpersonal relationship of both parties by saving the quality face and identity face,realizing equity rights and association rights of communicators.This research has important theoretical and practical significance.Theoretically,this research employs Spencer’s rapport management theory to make a detailed analysis of the euphemisms in workplace reality shows,which provides a new research perspective for the study of euphemisms.Practically,this research has important practical guiding significance for how communicators efficiently select euphemisms to realize harmonious communication in workplace reality shows.