Abstract

Euphemisms are roundabout ways to replace rude and blunt expressions to avoid embarrassment. They can easily be found everywhere in our daily communication and have been paid attention by many scholars. However, the former researchers usually perceived euphemisms as a linguistic and social phenomenon, few study them from the cognitive perspective. This thesis considers euphemism as a mental phenomenon, which can help us understand the nature of euphemism better.
There’s no denying fact that euphemisms have intimate connections with taboos. But euphemisms are not confined to merely take place of taboos. In this study, it believes that euphemisms can also substitute anything that makes people uneasy and ridiculous in communication. And this thesis solves three questions, including the classification of euphemisms, the association between euphemisms and the euphemized as well as the explanation of metaphors in English euphemism from the angle of cognitive linguistics.
This study is divided into three phases: definition, classification and explanation. The main difference of this study from others lies in that based on the relationship between euphemisms and the euphemized subjects, it reclassifies English euphemism into two groups, that is to say, euphemisms relating to what people really refer to in meaning or those have similar form with the subjects. An explanation based on classification adds more credibility and systematicness to this study. By applying the conceptual metaphor theory, this thesis gives an explanation of English euphemism, in reference to Liu Chunbao’s euphemism dictionary and the British National Corpus (BNC).
This thesis draws two conclusions. Firstly, the euphemized terms and euphemisms belong to one cognitive category. Although both of them have some attributes that people are unwilling to say, euphemisms can hide some negative attributes. In this way, people’s attention is drawn away and the possible embarrassing situation is avoided. In the second place, metaphor forms the mechanism for English euphemism. In order to get mutual understanding in communication, euphemisms have some similar features with the euphemized subjects either in form or in meaning. This kind of correspondence lays the foundation for metaphor and euphemisms are used to refer to the euphemized subjects. The metaphor mechanism for English euphemism is made up of three situations: the whole for the part, the part for the whole and one part for another part. Whichever situation they are in, people need more time to understand what they really refer to and the embarrassment is avoided.

Keywords:  English euphemism  conceptual metaphor theory  cognitive linguistics

摘要

委婉语是用迂回的手段来避免由于说话直接而造成的尴尬，它在我们的日常交际中随处可见，并且已经受到许多学者关注。但是，大部分学者都是从社会语言学和语用学等角度进行研究的，有关认知的委婉语研究却很少。本文将委婉语看作是与人们心理相关的现象,从认知的角度对英语委婉语进行解释，能帮助我们更清楚的了解英语委婉语的本质。
委婉语与忌讳语关系密切，但委婉语不仅仅可以替代禁忌语，还可以替代那些在交谈中令谈话者不舒服的东西。在本文中，解决了三个问题：重新分类英语委婉语，委婉语与它被指代的事物之间的关系，从认知学的角度对英语委婉语进行解释的途径和方法。
该研究有三部分构成：定义、分类、解释。本文根据婉指对象与委婉语之间的关系，重新对委婉语进行分类，并划分了两种委婉语：一种是与实际指代对象在意思上有相似之处的委婉语，另一种是与替代的词汇在形式上相似的委婉语。然后从不同类别依次进行分析，使分析更有深度和系统性。本文运用认知语言学中的概念隐喻理论，并在BNC语料库和刘纯豹编辑《英语委婉语词典》为主要参考，展开了英语委婉语的深入分析。
从本文中，可以得出两个结论：第一、被指代的对象和委婉语属于相同的认知范畴。它们有一些人们不愿意提及的共性，但委婉语还有一些令人欢快的因素，这些因素能够暂时把人们的注意力从负面属性上转移，以此来避免谈话中可能会出现的尴尬局面。第二、隐喻是委婉语的构成机制。为了能让交谈者更好地了解双方所谈论的内容，委婉语与那些被指代的词汇存在某种相似之处，往往是在形式或意思方面。这就构成了隐喻的基础，并且用委婉语来代替那些让人联想到不好的特性的词汇。三种情况共同组成了英语委婉语的隐喻机制：整体代部分，部分代整体，部分代部分。在这三种场景中，那些不好的因素被委婉语掩盖，尴尬的局面也就避免了。

关键词:英语委婉语；概念隐喻理论；认知语言学