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In the modern society, more and more euphemisms have been used in discussing daily life and social affairs.Occupation is one of the main topics in daily life. Different occupational practitioners play different parts in the society, and they stay in different social status, in order to satisfy people’s psychological needs, occupation euphemism is therefore produced and come into being. Although there has been a lot of research on euphemisms, occupation euphemism is nearly in vacancy. To fill this vacancy, it is necessary to make research on occupation euphemisms. The purpose of this thesis is to do a tentative research on the occupation euphemism which is more often used in modern times and analyze its social functions to help people have a good command of occupation euphemism and make good use of it in right places and at right time.
This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter One is an introductory part which mainly introduces the background, the significance and the overall structure of the research subject in this thesis. Chapter Two gives a comprehensive knowledge of euphemism including its definition, classification and functions. Chapter Three give an introduction of English occupation euphemism. Chapter Four focuses on analyzing the characteristics of English occupation euphemism. Chapter Five dwells on the social functions of English occupation euphemism. Chapter Six is the conclusion.
2 Euphemism
Euphemism is widely used in human languages and plays a role of lubricant in communication. It not only effectively avoids the offence or embarrassment to the listener caused by the straight-forwardness but also clearly conveys the information that the speaker wants to express. The word "Euphemism" comes from the Greek word "euphemos", literally meaning "to speak with good words or in a pleasant manner", which in turn is derived from the Greek root-words "eu", meaning "good", and "pheme", meaning "speech". According to records, the word "euphemism" is first used in Thomas Blount’s Glossographia (1656) where its definition is "a good or favorable interpretation of a bad word."
2.1 Definition of Euphemism
Regarding to the definition of euphemism, there are different versions of euphemism in different dictionaries. In Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, euphemism is defined as "the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant" (1984:248). In Oxford Concise Dictionary (7th edition), the definition reads "the substitution of mild or vague or roundabout expression for harsh or blunt or direct one". (1982:464) In Collins Dictionary of the English Language (1979), euphemism is defined as "an inoffensive word or phrase substituted for one considered offensive or hurtful, esp. one concerned with religion, sex, death or excreta".
According to above various definition of euphemism, we can summarize that euphemism, linguistically speaking, is a rhetorical expression intended by the speaker in a tactful, pleasant and positive way to convey his information to the listener contrasted with the word or phrase it substitute for. Functionally speaking, it is widely used in our daily life to avoid unpleasant situation in interpersonal communication.