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Essay On Euphemism

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2.General understanding of euphemism People always expect to seek a kind of appropriate presentation to fulfill communicative tasks, which could make both sides feel pleased and at ease as well as accomplish the task smoothly. Euphemism is exactly the way to realize this aim. It’s easy to find that euphemism is almost ubiquitous in sorts of languages. In addition, its range of application and social functions has been continuously enlarging 应该是enlarged吧. Euphemism reflects some language rules and the relationship between language and society. So there could be various euphemisms with different culture and social background. 2.1 Definition of euphemism The word “euphemism” comes from “euphemisos” in Greek. Premix “eu” means “good or sounding …show more content…

The earliest euphemism came into being with the emergence of taboos. At that time, human beings couldn’t withstand any natural disasters with their low social productivity. Also, they couldn’t account for some natural phenomena so they felt scared and turned to superstition and religion. In order not to offend gods, many taboos appeared. Thus euphemism emerged at the right moment when people had to talk something about these taboo words. “Social members thought that the language itself can bring happiness or disaster to human beings and that language is the root of the fortunes. Who want to offend the root would receive a double punishment. On the other hand, who want to please the root will get the sanctuary and bless” (Chen Yuan, 1983:337). For example, people will use “pass away”, “go to his long sleep” to take the place of “die”. Although euphemism originally was generated to avoid some taboos, it is used under more and more situations in today’s world. And many factors have influence on the development of euphemism, such as religions, social values, etc. Therefore, euphemism has some essential sources nowadays. It could come from physiology, political and diplomatic affairs, business, social life and so

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