Study on the Features of English Political Euphemism and Its Social Functions
Abstract
Political euphemism is a tool for political leaders to control information transmission. Based on some examples, this paper begins with a summary of three features which distinguish political euphemism from others. Then, it discusses its two social functions based on Austin’s Speech Act Theory: 1. as political leaders’ tool, political euphemism plays the role of hiding the truth and legalizing wrong behaviors; 2. it influences people’s sense of right and wrong as well as their understanding of the objective world, hence succeeding in persuading them. Such a linguistic phenomenon provides another proof that language is not only a reflection of the objective world but a process of social construction.
Keywords: Political euphemism, Social Functions, Feature, Speech act
1. Introduction
Euphemism, a common phenomenon in human language use, has attracted much attention home and abroad. With the arrival of foreign linguistic theories in China since 1980s, Chinese scholars have published a large number of essays and books which focus on euphemism from different perspectives and systematically summarize the causes of its production, way of composition, classification, and pragmatic principles of composition as well as its social functions. (Shu, 1995, p17; Liu, 2000, p36) Actually, political euphemism has always been a point of penetration for foreign political linguists to evaluate and criticize political discourse. In the recent years, with the establishment of the selected English newspaper reading course in many Chinese colleges, English political euphemism began to attract people’s attention.
However, it is mainly confined to its disguising function (Pan, 2004, p85), leaving its influences on people’s thoughts and ideology untouched. This paper begins with an analysis on the features of political euphemism and explores its two main social functions--- disguising or cheating function and persuasive function with Austin’s Speech Act Theory.
Political euphemism is a tool for political leaders to control information transmission. Based on some examples, this paper begins with a summary of three features which distinguish political euphemism from others. Then, it discusses its two social functions based on Austin’s Speech Act Theory: 1. as political leaders’ tool, political euphemism plays the role of hiding the truth and legalizing wrong behaviors; 2. it influences people’s sense of right and wrong as well as their understanding of the objective world, hence succeeding in persuading them. Such a linguistic phenomenon provides another proof that language is not only a reflection of the objective world but a process of social construction.
Keywords: Political euphemism, Social Functions, Feature, Speech act
1. Introduction
Euphemism, a common phenomenon in human language use, has attracted much attention home and abroad. With the arrival of foreign linguistic theories in China since 1980s, Chinese scholars have published a large number of essays and books which focus on euphemism from different perspectives and systematically summarize the causes of its production, way of composition, classification, and pragmatic principles of composition as well as its social functions. (Shu, 1995, p17; Liu, 2000, p36) Actually, political euphemism has always been a point of penetration for foreign political linguists to evaluate and criticize political discourse. In the recent years, with the establishment of the selected English newspaper reading course in many Chinese colleges, English political euphemism began to attract people’s attention.
However, it is mainly confined to its disguising function (Pan, 2004, p85), leaving its influences on people’s thoughts and ideology untouched. This paper begins with an analysis on the features of political euphemism and explores its two main social functions--- disguising or cheating function and persuasive function with Austin’s Speech Act Theory.