摘 要：委婉语是一种用间接委婉的方式表达说话者思想的语言现象。委婉语在人类交际中起着重要的作用，是协调人际关系的重要手段。作为语言的一个重要部分，委婉语引起了很多学者的关注。本文以美剧《蛇蝎女佣》中的委婉语为例，从词汇、语法和修辞三个方面探讨了该剧中的委婉语的运用特点，并运用语用学理论分析了委婉语的语用功能: 回避功能和礼貌功能。恰当地使用委婉语，可以提高人们的交际能力，促进交际的成功。

关键词：委婉语； 语用学； 蛇蝎女佣

Abstract：Euphemism is a linguistic expression to convey the speakers’ ideas in a indirect and tactful way. Euphemism plays an important role in human communication. Euphemism is an important way of communication. As an essential part of English language, English euphemism has attracted attention of many scholars. This paper explores the features of the use of euphemism in Devious Maids from the aspects of vocabulary, grammar and rhetoric and analyzes the pragmatic functions of euphemism. Its pragmatic functions include evasion function and politeness function. The proper use of euphemism can improve people’s communicative competence and promote a successful communication.

Key words: euphemism; pragmatics; Devious Maids

Contents

摘 要 i

Abstract ii

I. Introduction 1

II. Overview of Euphemism and Pragmatic Principles 2

2.1 Overview of Euphemism 2

2.2 Pragmatic Principles 3

2.2.1 Cooperative Principle 3

2.2.2 Politeness Principle 3

III. Analysis of Euphemism in Devious Maids 4

3.1 Introduction to the Devious Maids 4

3.2 The use of Euphemism of Devious Maids 6

3.2.1 Lexical Application of Euphemism 7

3.2.2 Grammatical Application of Euphemism 7

3.2.3 Rhetorical Application of Euphemism 10

IV. Pragmatic Study of Euphemism in Devious Maids 12

4.1 Euphemism and Cooperative Principle 12

4.2 Euphemism and Politeness Principle 13

V. Conclusion 14

Bibliography 16

Acknowledgements 17

A  Pragmatic study of English Euphemism in Devious Maids

I. Introduction

Euphemism is a rhetorical method to describe an unpleasant or offensive thing in a mild and pleasant way. Euphemism can make people more polite and humorous when talking to someone. Euphemism is able to protect our face and let us get away from an awkward situation. It is a perfect approach for people to achieve a successful social communication. Therefore, euphemism plays an important role in our daily life. As we know, people would like to use a polite way to describe something instead of taboo or unpleasant ways. Therefore, people tend to use euphemism to avoid taboo and offensiveness in communication.

It is noticed euphemism exits not only in written but also spoken English. And as a matter of fact, euphemism pervades language. Linguistics all hold that euphemism plays an important role in human communication. Whether one can properly use euphemism shows one's language performance, because euphemism is an inseparable part of language communication.

Euphemism is a kind of rhetoric pattern which is frequently adopted in literature as well. Despite the pervasiveness of euphemism, little attention has been paid in TV series. So the present study is going to concentrate on pragmatic analysis of euphemism in a popular American series Devious Maids. The show is a vivid picture of a modern American life. It is mainly talking about the daily life of the maids whose conversations are full of euphemisms. In this paper, many euphemisms are listed from the soap opera and analyzed from three aspects—the lexical, the grammatical and the rhetorical. Its ultimate goal is to account for how euphemism is used so as to help the communicators achieve their communicative intentions from the pragmatic point of view.

This paper comprises five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction, which gives a general account of euphemisms including research background, research aim and organization of the thesis. The second chapter gives the definitions of euphemisms and introduces the pragmatic principles. Chapter three gives a detailed case study of the application of euphemism in Devious Maids. Chapter four studies the pragmatic functions of euphemisms according to pragmatic theories including Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle. The detailed analysis of the euphemisms will show how CP and PP are observed or violated in Devious Maids. Chapter five concludes the paper, summing up the main content of the paper, pointing out the purpose of using euphemisms, giving some suggestions on the application of euphemism.