МУНИЦИПАЛЬНОЕ БЮДЖЕТНОЕ ОБЩЕОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ  УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ  

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Тема: «Проблемы эвфемистической лексики в социолингвистическом и культурологическом аспектах на примере английского языка»

Автор: 

                                                                       Тужилина Софья Александровна,

                                                     ученица 6 класса МБОУ Щелковской гимназии

                                     Щелковского муниципального района

      Московской области

                                           адрес администрации: 141100 г.Щелково,

                 1-ый Советский  пер., д.32

                                              телефон администрации: 8 (495) 56-2-18 -33

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        Руководитель:

                                                                   Самбурова Юлия Владимировна,

                  учитель английского языка

                     МБОУ Щелковской гимназии

                                   Щелковского муниципального района

     Московской области

2017 год

Рецензия на работу

ученицы  6 класса МБОУ Щелковской гимназии

Щелковского Муниципального района Московской области

Тужилиной Софьи

по теме «Проблемы эвфемистической лексики в социолингвистическом и культурологическом аспектах на примере английского языка»

        В данной исследовательской работе  рассматриваются предпосылки  и сущность эвфимезационных процессов в современных условиях развития общества. Тематика данного исследования весьма актуальна, так как потребность в изучении  многих социальных проблем  сквозь призму языка неуклонно растетю В отечсетвенной и зарубежной лингвистической науке  доминирует понимание  эвфемии в широком смысле этого термина, которая в свою очередь, не способствует адекватному описанию данного явления.

        В своем исследовании Тужилина С. Выделяет основные  темы и сферы эвфемизации в условиях современного общества. При этом особое внимание уделяет влиянию  феминистской лингвистике, тенденции обезличивания в языке, а так же  явлению политкорректности на изменение  норм языка. По мнению исследователя именно эти компоненты оказали  наибольшее влияние  на процесс эвфимезации английского языка. Проанализированная  классификация основных  сфер эвфимезации   и функционирования  новых эвфиместических выражений  имеет определенную значимост, хотя и не является  полной.

        Несомненно данная тема нуждается в дальнейшей, более детальной  разработке с целью создания полной и непротиворечивой классификациии сферы употребления эвфемизмов.

        Настоящая работа имеет практическую значимость, так как ее результаты основаны в том числе и на исследованиях, в которые были вовлечены учащиеся гимназии.

Учитель английского языка                                  Самбурова Ю.В.

CONTENTS

1.INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................

2.EUPHEMISMS AND THEIR POSITION IN THE LANGUAGE. DEFINITION OF EUPHEMISMS..................

3. REASONS FOR  THE EUPHEMISMS. EUPHEMISMS AS A SOCIOCULTURAL PROCESS.........................

4.POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND GENDER TENDENCIES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.......

5.CONCLUSION

6.BIBLIOGRAPHY

7. APPENDICES

It’s a strange world of language

 which skating on thin ice

 can get you into hot water. -Franklin P. Jones 

Introduction

        Language is not simply a means of communication. It reflects the events and the culture,    conveys ideas and meanings. Language is the key  to understanding the world and changing it. Everything acquired in social practice,  influences our  attitude to the surroundings, gives birth to new feelings and emotions, develops our language personality (a bearer of national culture). Being a part of the society we have to coexist or accept the  ideology  which is considered correct by the governments and the majority of the population. We may support  or oppose it, in any case we are emotionally influenced.  In the  result of  this conflict the opponents find a compromise which satisfies both conflicting parties. But it does not last long as new events, new realities of life, new social  upheaval bring to new confrontation. In this concern more attention is paid to the language as  the means of interpersonal understanding. The need to look at social phenomena through the prism of language and gender is constantly increasing. A euphemism is a word or phrase used to mask a rude or offensive concept. It  is an indirect term that is used by a speaker to save a hearer from being shocked or feeling embarrassed or upset.

Project hypothesis:  Due to cultural differences  - history,  social customs, values, religions  and moral standards,  euphemisms are the words which appear and disappear most  frequently in an American English. Euphemisms change along with  the social attitudes to the subjects which we euphemise not to offend, disturb or embarrass  anybody. Sometimes this fight with so called “verbal aggression” can bring to linguistic and social curiosities or even  doing away with somebody .

The objectives of the project: analyses of euphemisms as a  sociocultural component of  the English language.

 Prospects of the research:

1. To determine  social an cultural reasons for the language euphemisation.
2. To analyse the main groups of euphemisms.
3. To prove that political correctness,  gender politics and  gender neutral policies are the main sources for language euphemisation.

The  materials of the   study are:

1. examples from examples from classical English literature, periodicals and mass media;

2. Holder R.W. How Not To Say What You Mean: A Dictionary of Euphemisms

Methods:

• studying literature – texts and interent resources.
• Interviewing students.
• IT application for the presentation.

Euphemisms and their position in the language. Definition of euphemisms.

            Any language is a system which exists  while it develops and this process is closely connected with  social and cultural development of the society and its social differentiation  For many years  scientists and common people have tried to find out why some languages develop quicker than others,  what influences their changes, why some languages become international but others die out.

        Nowadays the tendency to replace  offensive words by more acceptable ones is becoming more and more popular. Not to offend the hearer, not to speak  directly about some unsuitable, unpleasant or embarrassing issues or simply to veil the real sense, people use the words with less negative connotation – euphemisms. Webster’s New Dictionary  refers to euphemism as, substitution of agreeable or offensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant. The word euphemism originates from the Greek, the prefix “eu ” means “well ” or “sounding good ” and the stem “pheme ” means ”speech” or “speak ” .  Euphemisms are a kind of  indicator  of the social structure of the society, relationships between people at work and  in the family. They reflect  the attitude to certain  ethnic groups and races, men and women, different discriminations, discrimination of age, for example,  – ageism – dislike of elderly people. In this concern in the English language there have appeared such  euphemisms as  “third age”, senior citizen or golden ager,  and etc. But the reaction to these euphemisms is not always positive, as some advanced in years people  prefer to be called whatever, even “ an old foggy” but not a senior citizen.

Reasons for the Use of Euphemisms. Euphemisms as a Sociocultural Process.

        Euphemisms cover important events of human existence. They often appear in contexts referring to unhappiness of human life, like death or diseases, but they also refer to very emotive events such as birth. To disguise income or property differences, there appeared the word “disadvantaged”. To avoid racial discrimination, in stead of “Black” they use “coloured” or “non-white”. Not to offend people who are physically or mentally different , the word crippled (dating back to 950) was changed by handicapped (dating back to 1700), which in its turn was changed into disabled ( since the 1930s). Mentally retarded people are called learning disabled ( the word “ mentally retarded” was  invented in the middle of the 20th century to replace the previous set of terms 'slow” and “ backward”. Students with low academic abilities are called  “underachievers”. Those who suffer from a partial or total inability to hear are called  “hearing impaired”. People  characterized by difficulty in articulation of words are speech impaired. “Insane asylum” —a hospital for mentally incompetent or unbalanced person has been changed by “mental hospital.

        Since 1960s it has become popular to raise the prestige of some professions. So many previously unwelcome professions have now taken more appealing names. For example, people always use cleaning operative for road sweeper or dustman, sanitation engineer for garbage collector, meat technologist for butcher, and hairdresser has turned into beautician, or hairlogist, mortician into funeral director etc. Due to the gender  discrimination in the English language, “stewardess” is called “ flight attendant”, as we say chairperson instead of  chairman. It is common today to address a group of women as “Guys, do you want to go for lunch?” and use the term “actors” for both actors and actresses. If you ask “Why policemen  are so prone to taking bribes?”,  you  make us  think  of all police as men.   The names of some professions, are basically of common gender, namely, they can be applied to both sexes. However, people usually will habitually associate them only with male. So, we have to add “woman” before those names if we want to refer to female of those professions. For example:

         In addition, some terms display certain stereotypes in our thinking-  male image comes to our mind when someone says these words to us: Model, Musician, Cleaner, Driver, Secretary, Baby-sitter, Doctor, Engineer, Scientist , Comedian, Killer, Terrorist.
In English language, there are many words, which are clearly male-orientated as they contain the element “—man” while they can in fact apply to both sexes, for example: chairman,  congressman,  councilman,  newsman,  freshman, policeman, salesman mailman. Sexism in language is also showed in that the noun of feminine gender can only be obtained by adding a certain  morpheme to the noun. For example:

        There are various strategies for replacing –man compounds. For example, the use of a gender-neutral term - police officer instead of policeman.  Here is a list of the most frequently used alternatives:

businessman - business executive, business manager, business owner, business person  cattleman - cattle breeder, cattle owner, cattle producer, cattle raiser, cattle worker, farmer chairman -  the chair, chairperson, coordinator, discussion leader, head (of) … , leader, moderator, person chairing a meeting, person in the chair, president

craftsman  - artist, craftworker, technician

fireman – firefighter,  boiler attendant, fire tender

fisherman – fisher

handyman - handyperson, do-it-yourselfer, maintenance worker, repairer

milkman -  milkdeliverer, milk supplier, 'milko' (informal)

policeman -  member of the police, police officer

postman - letter carrier, mail carrier, mail deliverer, postal delivery officer, postal worker, 'postie' (informal)

salesman - sales agent, sales associate, sales attendant, salesperson, sales representative, salesworker, shop assistant, shop attendant

sportsman - athlete, player, sports competitor, sportsperson

tradesman - tradesperson (trader)

weatherman -  meteorologist, weather presenter, weather reporter, weather forecaster

workman - worker, employee, working person

        The biggest group of euphemisms  refers to such negative  social topics like  crimes,  wars, the difference in economic development and addictions (called weaknesses, e. g. weakness for the drink -  alcoholism or weakness for the horses represents gambling

addiction):

Crimes

client -  a person as a subject of regulation by a government  agency or  public authority

goldfather, don -  the head of Mafia family or other  group involved  in organized crime

killing - put a person´s lights out, put against a wall, put away, put daylight through, put

down, put on the spot, put out of your troubles, put to sleep,  put to the sword

terminated - Mafia-style killings

jail  -  detention center,  correction center,   group home

drunk – intoxicated, legless,  under the table, under the influence, spaced out, overtired,

stewed, whistled, pickled, potted, stewed, screwed,  in liquor, in the bag, illuminated
poor nation – emerging nation

family jewels – shameful secrets
dead -  passed away, departed, deceased,  gone to a better place,  bit the big one, bought the farm, croaked, given up the ghost, kicked the bucket, gone south, assumed room temperature,  gone to our long home, gone west,  returned to ashes

War

war -  armed struggle, conflict, confrontation, counter-attack, incident, intervention,

limited action, operation

 prehostility – peace

confrontation – armed conflict between two states

the tools – all the components that serve to production of nuclear weapons.

terrorist: criminal or rebel

neutralize -  to kill or disable a target

secure an area (or mop up) - kill remaining enemy soldiers

toublemaker -  rebel, revolutionary, or folk heroes, especially by oppressive governments

final solution -  The Holocaust

ethnic cleansing - genocide

Unpleasant phenomena
homeless – shopping-bag lady, vagrant, elderly woman  who roams  a city  carrying  her possessions in a shopping bag or bags, street person

job seekers - the unemployed

illegal alien - illegal immigrants

Forth World – the world's poorest and most undeveloped countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America

Third World -  those nations whose territories , if not their politics , do not form part o9f  the industrially developed  world.

Developing countries -  poor nations (has replaced underdeveloped and backward)
        The usage of euphemisms in politics is aimed at achieving  positive propaganda effect,  uniting nation,  and mitigating conflicts between  different ethnic and social groups. Though such devotion to contradiction to verbal agression has a lot of supporters, there are      those who strongly speaks out against it. Mocking at  funny substitutions, Robert Novak, a famous American journalist and television personality, asked the editors of “The Los Angeles Times” how would “Indian Summer” be called (the word “Indian” is considered polotically incorrect and changed by “Native American”) . The answer was really shocking “unseasonably  warm weather  late in the  year”.

Political Correctness  and Gender Tendencies in the English Language

As the language is closely connected with  mentality and culture of its bearers, a lot of political, sosial and cultural phenomena are reflected in the system  of any language.  The English language hag undergone a lot of  cahnges during the last 30 centuries. No wonder that this language and the american society have given rise to such a behaviorial tendency as political correctness  which  means using words or behavior which will not offend any group of people. Most people think it is important for everyone to be treated equally, fairly and with dignity. Some words have been used for a long time that are unkind to some people. Sometimes these words have now been replaced by other words that are not offensive. Such words are described as politically correct. The first to ruin the ddifferences between men and women in the society,  and who criticized the existing language and culture as “male-dominated” were feminists.  The history of the  society, as the feminists argued, was written from the male point of view (“it’s HIStory, not HERstory”).  

        With the help of language  people were made less sensitive to  race, gender, age, and sexual orientation differences.  The second  big group who contributed to the process  were so called ethnic communities. Their demand for “deracialization” in English provided new names for nationalities and ethnic groups. The words Negro, colored, and Afro-American were replaced by African American; Oriental or Asiatic became Asian or more specific designations such as Pacific Islander, Chinese American, Korean. Such words as  God, Deveil, housewife, babe, Paradise, bookworm, scullery maid, boyish or girlish  figure h are becoming  forbidden in the English language. Bitter struggle against so called politically incorrect writers began in the USA about 50 years ago. Among them Mark Twain and his  “Adventures of Huckelberry Finn” (1885), William Shakespeare “Merchant of Venice” (1596-1599), Charles Diskens and some female characters of his books because they are described like weak and infintile. “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway is full of ageism humiliation of people living far from the sea.  Some editors avoid publishing so called emotionally  tense and controversial materials as they may hurt children who have never seen  mountais or seas, who have never been to the country. What is more, they never  mention in their books that in the 19th century all the girls and women embroidered and did crafts. Many fairy tales do not to stand up to any  criticism as they are full of  lookism, sexism, ageism, racism and any others.

        The term ”correctness” was introduce by Karen DeCrow  an American  feminist in 1975. It seems she  could not expect  how  obsessively concerned the society would become  about   whether or not somebody, somewhere, could be offended by something, somehow. Another day, another person is offended by something.

        Some  university professors declare that minds of their students are infected by political correctnes and  this young generation can be called  Frankenstein monster because they easily terrify unsuitable and demanding lecturers. Students refuse to pseak and write on the topics which they consider offensive.  The weaker students get more support and approval because there must no be failure and loosers any more. Political correctness has lead to  lower standards of excellence in education and training. Political correctness is getting way out of hand and it has to be stopped.  A number of the new politically correct words are often   rather ridiculous. The  examples of these are the terms ending in challenged. For example, someone who is very short might be described as "vertically challenged". People also say that things that are obviously bad are called by something else which hides the fact that they are bad. For example, young people who are in trouble with the law, instead of being called "juvenile delinquents" became "children at risk", starving are called  culinary challenged, fat are vertically challenged, people with Down syndrome  are differently abled.

        Ideological background of  some of these changes in the English language sounds ridiculous. According to it,  strong and healthy white  men have been humiliating and exploiting  all the rest for many centuries. Now they must ask for forgiveness every moment and all their best to  make up for the past sins.

        Euphemisms contribute to the development and enriching of English language by new expressions, because they are based on associations and associations still change. But at the same time they can bring to misunderstanding and hypocrisy as they do not name things  openly.

        We interviewed students in grades 6-9 on euphemisms. Only 15%  of  the words and texts were understood correctly. These are the examples of  incorrect interpretation of some

Teacher Euphemisms:

Conclusion.

While studying euphemisms we came to the followingconclusion:

1. Euphemisms will never stop appearing in the language due to different social, cultural and economic processes in the life of any society despite its level of development.
2. Euphemisms deal with social taboos the list of which concerns almost all the spheres of life.
3. The most popular topics for the English language euphemisation (especially its American variant) are: Death, Ddiscrimination, Appearance, Sex, International Affairs, Religion, Age, Disease, Mental Abilities, Crimes.
4. Euphemisms contribute to language developmnet but at the same time bring to misunderstanding, confusion and  misconception. Instead of open and frank speaking,  they hide and camouflage unpleasant topics which may even worsen the situation.
5. The latest gender tendencies in the society of blurring borders between male and female,  and bringing us to the neuter gender,  greatly influence the language which may bring to the extinction of everything denoting gender origin.
6. Instead of politeness euphemisms can bring to humorous and ebarassing situations or even dishonesty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Printed Sources:

1. Holder, Bob. 2008. Dictionary of Euphemisms. New York: Oxford University Press.
2. Journal of Language and Linguistics Vol. 4 No. 2 2005 ISSN 1475 - 8989
3. Hornby, Albert, Sydney. 2005. Oxford Advanced Learner´s Dictionary of Current English. New York: Cambridge University Press.
4. Научный журнал «Вопросы структуры английского языка в синхронии и диахронии»  - Издательство Санкт-Петербургского университета: 2003.

     5. Pfister, J. 2010. Is there a need for a maxim of politeness? Journal of Pragmatics, 42,   - 1282

On-line Sources:

1. Alkire, Scott. 2002. “Introducing Euphemisms to Language Learners”. The Internet TESL Journal.  http://iteslj.org/Lessons/Alkire-Euphemisms.html

2. The Economist, November 29, 1997   http://www.economist.com/

3. USA today, Magazine. http://www.usatoday.com/

4. Richard, M. 2008. When Truth Gives Out, Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://www.protosociology.de/Reviews/ProtoSociology-R-Ball-Richard.pdf

5. Rees, N. 1993. The Politically correct Phrasebook: What They Say You Can and Cannot Say in the 1990s. London: Bloomsbury. http://doc.rero.ch/record/232366/files/00002415.pdf