Abstract

Language communication is a vital method that people rely on to maintain social and interpersonal relationships. When people communicate with others, it is inevitable for them to mention some nasty and obscene words. Therefore, instead of nasty and inappropriate words that involve unhappy feelings, people would use roundabout and implicit words to express thoughts and exchange information. Euphemism is a kind of conversational strategy used in the communication to achieve an ideal communication, and plays a role as the lubricant in coordinating interpersonal relationships and social relationships. Using euphemism appropriately can make the transmission of information successfully. Under the ever changing culture, with the development of human beings’ technology and civilization, the interpersonal function of euphemism become more apparent. This paper would use interpersonal function, one main contents of systemic functional linguistics, to analyze the communicative function of euphemism through mood, modality and intonation of speaking. Also the paper will analyze the pragmatic arguments of euphemism from the perspective of aesthetic needs, indirect demand and social needs of communication. Through the analysis, we can get a good knowledge of euphemism in dynamic situation, and can use it well in our daily life.

KEYWORDS: Euphemism; Interpersonal Function; Pragmatic Strategy; Pragmatic Arguments

摘　要

语言交际是人类赖以维系社会和人际关系的重要手段。但当人们与人交流时，不可避免得要提及一些令人不愉快或猥亵的词语。因而人们在语言交际中为了避免使用引起交际双方不快从而损害双方的关系的语言，于是采取迂回曲折的方法来表达思想，交流信息。为了能够获得理想的交际，人们采用委婉语，作为一种交际策略。在协调人际和社会关系中，委婉语起了润滑剂的作用。正确使用委婉语能够确保信息的成功传递。委婉语处在不断变化的状态下，随着科学和人类文明的发展，委婉语在交际语言中的功能将愈加突出。本文将运用人际功能，通过语气，情态和语调来分析委婉语的交际功能。人际功能是系统功能语言学的一个重要部分。最后，从人们的审美需求，间接需求和社会交际需求方面，本文将分析委婉语的语用依据。通过这些分析，我们可以很好的掌握动态环境中的委婉语，从而在日常生活中可以顺利的使用它。

关键词: 委婉语；人际功能；语用策略;语用依据

1    Introduction
   The language seems to have an inconceivable power. Not only it helps people exchange information, communicate ideas and have vocal communication, but also it arouses rich imagination. Although there isn’t any inevitable relation between words and the things they refer to, when people use some words to express meanings, the images of these words referring to would be formed in people’s minds vividly. In consequence, these words would bring some changes in people’s minds. For example, when one is hungry, the delicious food is mentioned to him, he would droll. Likewise, when some tabooed words or phrases that make people feel uncomfortable are mentioned, the same unhappy feelings would emerge. In order to achieve smooth and comfortable communications, when people want to describe some things which would make people feel scared, uncomfortable or detested, people prefer to use subtle or equivocal words or phrases to replace them or avoid mentioning them. These words or phrases are called euphemisms. A euphemism features implicitness and indirectness, helping avoid or dissimulate a great number of tabooed words. As a result, unhappy feelings and embarrassment could be averted.