Euphemism is a language phenomenon which is also an important tool used in certain occasions to avoid awkward situations。 In English, the word “euphemism” originally comes from Greek; the meaning of its prefix “eu” is “good” and its root “pheme” means “speech”。 So we can easily know that euphemism means speaking in a pleasant manner or with good words。 A definition of euphemism given by Oxford advanced learners’ dictionary of current English (1989) is: “Example of the use of pleasant, mild or indirect words or phrases in place of more accurate or direct one”。 To sum up, euphemisms refer to words that are indirect and nice。
2。2 The characteristics of euphemism
The most important feature of euphemism is indirect and implicit。 With euphemisms, listeners can easily understand the deeper meaning and intention behind them even though speakers do not say directly。 For example, when someone goes to urinate or defecate, people don’t use these two words for it’s too direct to say like that; instead, they will say he goes to the bathroom or he releases himself。
The second characteristic is universality。 Though euphemism doesn’t come straight to the point, it is just like the common sense and people all know and accept its underlying meaning。 Some taboos related with sex and death can be replaced with euphemisms。 For example, when we refer to death, we seldom say “die”; using the expression “pass away” or “go to heaven” instead will be more polite。 文献综述
The feature of times is the third one。 As the society changes a lot, the words we use are totally different from they used to be。 New words appear constantly while the old words disappear gradually, the same as the euphemism itself。 A same thing with a same meaning usually has different euphemism expressions in different times。 For instance, with the development of African-American Civil Rights Movement, the appellation for the black changes from “Negro” to “black people” and finally becomes “African American” in current times。
The last characteristic is regional。 Since the fact that histories and cultural backgrounds in different areas vary from each other; as a result, customs and taboos are not the same。 In euphemism, we call this phenomenon regional difference。 Here’s an example: In Britain, people call the male condom as “French letter”, while French people say it as “caopteagloise”。 Hence, we know that even though the euphemistic meaning is same, the society tries to avoid saying directly。
2。3 Related study of euphemism in business negotiation
Many scholars whether abroad or domestic have studied euphemism since it appears。 Danial Druckman (1977) in his book Negotiations: social-psychological perspectives introduced and presented the importance of euphemism in business negotiations for the first time。 In 1981, British linguist Hugh Rawson (1981) had published A Dictionary of Euphemism and Other Double Talks in which he pointed out that euphemism is dominated by two laws。 After that people began to understand euphemism phenomenon。 Then, Sorrels, B。D。 (1984) published Business Communication Fundamentals, which introduced the history, characteristic of euphemisms as well as its effects on business communications Taylor, S。 (1993) in her book Communication for Business studied the main types of euphemisms employed in business communications from the lexical level and grammatical level。 And domestic scholar Shu Dingfang (束定芳) used pragmatic theory to research in《委婉语新探》of the issue of《外国语》。 Shu thinks (1989); all euphemism structures have to follow three rules: Distance Principle; Related Principle and Pleasant Principle。 Besides, in the book《委婉语研究：回顾与前瞻》, Shu Dingfang and Xu Jinyuan (徐金元) (1995) expounded the relationship between the use of euphemism and these three principles。 委婉语在商务谈判中的运用研究(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_88054.html