Abstract and Key Words

Abstract ：The euphemism is a universal phenomenon in the development of human language. It is also the product of history and culture. The emergence of euphemism in English derives from the language taboo in life and society in the human history. From the perspective of linguistics, euphemism is a kind of figure of speech, and a method to do interpersonal communication with euphemistic language for achieving ideal communicative effects. In this paper, the author mainly illustrates three aspects of English euphemisms: origination and definition, pragmatic features and pragmatic functions.

Key words: English euphemism； pragmatic feature,；pragmatic function
摘要：委婉语是人类语言发展过程中的一种普遍现象，是历史和文化的产物。英语委婉语的产生源于人类在历史上出现的在生活以及社会上的语言禁忌，从语言学的角度上看，委婉语是一种修辞格，是人们为达到理想的交际效果而用委婉语言进行人际交往的一种手段。本文主要论述了英语委婉语的起源与定义、英语委婉语语用特征以及语用功能三个方面的内容。

关键词：英语委婉语； 语用特征； 语用功能

1 Introduction 
1.1 Definition of Euphemism
The English word “euphemism” comes from ancient Greek. The prefix “eu-” means good and sounding well; the root “pheme” means speech or saying; and the suffix “-ism” means the noun property of “euphemism”. In short, the meaning of “euphemism” is “fair speech” and “use of good words”. In Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary, “euphemism” is explained as “use of pleasant，mild or indirect words or phrases in place of more accurate or direct ones”.
Euphemisms widely exist in various languages. What is euphemism? When people have to point out the taboo item or action which they are unwilling to say, people will use the beautiful words to replace them, using metaphors to imply them, or winding expressions to point them out. These beautiful, substitutive or implied words are euphemisms(Hu,2004:100). The euphemism can achieve better communicative effects. In the rhetoric, euphemism is also called as “roundabout”. The definitions of euphemism are basically the same in English and Chinese. In other words, in order to help speakers to lessen or eliminate the various unpleasant associations in the communication process, people usually will use implicit, moderate, elegant, indirect and nonirritating language to replace the blunt, direct, vulgar, terrible and irritating language in the communication process according to the politeness principle of the conversation.