【正文】 mething thought to be unpleasant. (Longman EnglishChinese Dictionary of Contempo rary English, Longman Group UK Limited, 1988) (4) A euphemism is a polite, pleasant, or neutral word or expression that is used to refer to something which people may find upsetting or embarrassing to talk about, for example, sex, the human body or death. (Collins Cobuild English Dictionary, SFLEP, 2021) (5) Rhetorical trope: a pleasant replacement for an objectionable word that has 第 2 頁(yè) pejorative connotations. (Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, FLERP, 2021) In China, Chen Wangdao (1997) defined euphemism as a figure of speech in which roundabout and implicit words and expressions are used to substitute direct expressions to hint the meaning. “Weiwan (委婉 )” is a figure of speech in Chinese. It is also called “wanqu (婉曲 )” or “wanzhuan(婉轉(zhuǎn) )”. Another figure of speech in Chinese is called “bihui (避諱 )” or “huishi (諱飾 )”. The bination of the figure of speech “weiwan (委婉 )” and the figure of speech “bihui (避諱 )” in Chinese is equivalent to the figure of speech “euphemism” in English (Li Guonan, 2021:190). features of Euphemism National characteristic Euphemism is a mon language phenomenon in the world culture. However, different countries and different nations in different surroundings and social environment have different production and living manners, and their culture depositions are also different. So euphemism in different language has some differences either. The differences are the representation of the national characteristic. There is a typical example about the word “poor”, it described an young woman who lived with hard condition. The paragraph uses several euphemisms of poor: “I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I was not poor, I was needy. Then they said it was selfdefeating to think of myself as needy, that I was culturally deprived. Then they told me deprived was a bad image, that I was underprivileged. Then they told me that underprivileged was overused, that I was disadvantaged. I still do not have a dime but I have a great vocabulary!” Needy (lack of modity), culturally deprived(lose the opportunity of education), underprivileged (having less money and fewer opportunities than most people in society), disadvantaged (humble). Those four words are the euphemisms for “ poor” which the government used to cheat the public. Regional feature Different regions have different customs, so do the language. For instance, bread 第 3 頁(yè) is a kind of daily food in British, and the phrase “take bread out of someone?s mouth” means to go off with someone?s job. And there is another example. An Australian woman married to an American man. They spent their honeymoon in America. And one day, the couple intended to go to a party together. But the bridegroom could not find a suitable full dress. The bride took out a birthday suit that she gave him as a present a few days ago and said: “Why not wear your birthday suit?” However, the whole family were all astonished because in American English, “in one?s birthday suit” is the euphemistic expression of “naked”. So this embarrassing situation was resulted from the regional differences in euphemism. Indirect and implicit The most important feature of euphemism is indirect and implicit. The purpose of euphemism is to use some indirect expressions to avoid something that makes people unhappy. And this is the indirect character. Euphemism always gives people hints in a roundabout way. We can infer the deeper meaning and intention from the conversation. For example: “Don?t you think my cooking is wonderful?” The girl asked. “Are you fishing for pliments.” Her boy friend responded. In the conversation above, the boyfriend not only answered the girl implicitly, and did not embarrass his girlfriend. Similarly, when someone is ill, we always say he is under the weather. If someone is mad, we say he is soft in mind. Universality Universality is something that is wellknown and accepted by all of the human beings. Euphemism almost exists in every language and culture. And each language has its own taboos, such as taboos connected with sex, death, or body functions. Hence, those taboos are replaced by euphemisms. While we say someone is dead in English, we always do not use the word “die”. We prefer to use “pass away” or “kick the bucket”. Humor Using euphemisms makes the language more interesting and humorous. It helps 第 4 頁(yè) the public face something cruel and the unpleasant reality freely and happily. For instance, “push up daisies” replaces “be buried”, “harebrained” refers to “mad”. “bay window” is a substitution for “belly”, “weekend worries” for “prostitutes”, “to lose one?s lunch” for “to vomit”. Nowadays, in some families, husband is afraid of his wife, and this kind of husband is called “henpecked husband”. Vagueness The formation of many euphemisms are made use of the vagueness of language, it makes the meaning broader. The vagueness of euphemisms can conceal the cruel. Just like the conversation below: Devizes: Is the pain worse? Surtees: It is no great pain, sir. I have been to one specialist, sir? Yesterday， it is ? Devizes: He couldn?t be sure. An operation? Surtees: Too late, he said, for that. If I had been operated on long ago, there might have been a chance. After reading the conversation above, we may not understand what they discuss about, what do the “it” and “that” indicate. It is difficult to understand the conversation correctly. Actually, Devizes and Surtees are talking about the cancer. Since cancer makes people unhappy, they use “it” and “that” to replace it tactfully. 第 5 頁(yè) Chapter 2 Language, Euphemism and Culture The definition of culture Culture is a large, wide and vague conception.