Cultural Taboos and Euphemisms in American English.Pdf
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Cultural Taboos and Euphemisms in American English
Cultural Taboos and Euphemisms in American English
Laura From
People try to avoid using words and expressions that are unpleasant, inappropriate or embarrassing to themselves or to the people to whom they are speaking. Such consciously-avoided words and expressions can be considered taboos. Taboos were originally concerned with sacred matters that could not be discussed, but nowadays taboos usually concern things that people are ashamed of. The existence of taboos throughout history has created a need to find words and expressions that enable people to talk about the subjects concerned without feeling uncomfortable or being afraid of hurting another person's feelings. Such words and expressions are referred to as "euphemisms". This paper will explain what euphemisms are and why they are used. It will also discuss the phenomenon of political correctness and how that affects the use of euphemisms in different areas of society. Related to this is the term "doublespeak", which will be discussed later on in this paper in relation to death and killing. This will shed some light on the great number of euphemisms associated with militaries and war and illustrate the contemporary use of different euphemisms related to American English. Defining Euphemisms According to Geoffrey Leech (45), euphemism is "the practice of referring to something offensive or delicate in terms that make it sound more pleasant or becoming than it really is". Thus, people use euphemisms to get rid of the negative meaning or connotation the word or topic in question has. Euphemistic expressions occur at all levels of society, but throughout history people have found certain areas to be more uncomfortable and unpleasant to discuss than others. These include sex, death, killing, crime, disease and different functions of the human body. The Categorization of Different Taboos Euphemisms are motivated by different taboos in society. Every culture...
Cultural Taboos and Euphemisms in American English
Laura From
People try to avoid using words and expressions that are unpleasant, inappropriate or embarrassing to themselves or to the people to whom they are speaking. Such consciously-avoided words and expressions can be considered taboos. Taboos were originally concerned with sacred matters that could not be discussed, but nowadays taboos usually concern things that people are ashamed of. The existence of taboos throughout history has created a need to find words and expressions that enable people to talk about the subjects concerned without feeling uncomfortable or being afraid of hurting another person's feelings. Such words and expressions are referred to as "euphemisms". This paper will explain what euphemisms are and why they are used. It will also discuss the phenomenon of political correctness and how that affects the use of euphemisms in different areas of society. Related to this is the term "doublespeak", which will be discussed later on in this paper in relation to death and killing. This will shed some light on the great number of euphemisms associated with militaries and war and illustrate the contemporary use of different euphemisms related to American English. Defining Euphemisms According to Geoffrey Leech (45), euphemism is "the practice of referring to something offensive or delicate in terms that make it sound more pleasant or becoming than it really is". Thus, people use euphemisms to get rid of the negative meaning or connotation the word or topic in question has. Euphemistic expressions occur at all levels of society, but throughout history people have found certain areas to be more uncomfortable and unpleasant to discuss than others. These include sex, death, killing, crime, disease and different functions of the human body. The Categorization of Different Taboos Euphemisms are motivated by different taboos in society. Every culture...