摘 要

英语委婉语，作为一种重要的语言现象和社会现象，被广泛应用于社会各阶层以及各个领域。它不仅能够满足人们在社会交往时的需要，而且是言语交际中协调人际关系和社会关系的重要手段和方法。多年来许多语言学家和学者分别从不同角度对英语委婉语进行了研究，主要集中在委婉语的定义、分类、构成手段以及构造原则等方面，很少有人从语用学的角度来分析英语委婉语。因此本文尝试从语用学角度来重新定义英语委婉语，重点探讨英语委婉语是怎样在人们的社会交往中发挥其交际功能的。对此，本文提出假设，认为在社会交往中人们是通过故意违反合作原则、遵守礼貌原则和面子理论来充分运用英语委婉语的交际功能，并且其交际功能是在具体的交际语境中来体现的。
  
关键词：英语委婉语；交际功能；原则；语境
 
Abstract

Euphemism, as an important phenomenon in our society and language, has been widely used in different walks of life and areas of the society. It not only can meet the needs of people in their social contacts, but also is an indispensible means to harmonize interpersonal relationships among different people. For decades, many linguists and scholars have made studies on English euphemism from various aspects. They mainly focus on the definition and classification of English euphemism, the methods and principles of the formation of English euphemism, etc. Few of them have done researches on English euphemism from the pragmatic perspective. Therefore, this thesis attempts to give a new definition of English euphemism pragmatically, mainly focuses on how people achieve the communicative function of English euphemism in their social contacts. This thesis makes hypothesis that people in the daily life violate the Cooperative Principle deliberately but observe the Politeness Principle and take the Face Theory into consideration in order to properly use the communicative function of English euphemism. It also points out that it is only in the communicative context that English euphemism can fully play its communicative function.
 
Keywords: English euphemism; principle; communicative function; context

Chapter 1 Introduction
Linguistics is usually defined as the science of language or, alternatively, as the scientific study of language.As a major branch of linguistics, pragmatics is the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successful communication. In the area of pragmatics, the context is an indispensible element in that it can separate pragmatics from semantics. Generally speaking, English euphemism, as a common linguistic phenomenon, is closely related to pragmatics in that the former is used in definite context for the purpose of eliminating embarrassment and enhancing the relationships among people. In other words, English euphemism is highly context-confined.
The use of English euphemism can date back to the remote ancient times when religion prohibited people from directly addressing the gods, thus people were asked to use an indirect way to show their respect and awe towards the gods. Later on, people began to make use of English euphemism to perform some functions in social communication. And with the development of the society and the increasing awareness of the taboos as well as the needs to enhance people’s relationship, English euphemism has been gradually applied to the communications in all kinds of areas.