Phraseological Euphemisms in Modern English

Yulia Arsentyeva (Kazan, Russia)

Email: helenaarsentiewa@mail.ru

 

ABSTRACT:

All native and foreign linguists distinguish two most important features of phraseological units: transference of meaning and no less than two lexeme componential structure. Phraseological unit is a stable expression of lexemes with completely or partially transferred meaning. The distinctive features of phraseological units as well as of phraseological euphemisms are transference of meaning or integrity of meaning, stability (lexical and grammatical), separability, expressivity and emotiveness. Euphemism is the substitution of words and expressions of mild or vague connotations for expressions rough, unpleasant or for some other reasons unmentionable. There are several reasons for using euphemisms: superstitious taboos; social and moral taboos; the need to soften painful news; using a learned word which sounds less familiar, hence less offensive. The majority of linguists consider euphemisms to be a complex and versatile linguistic phenomenon having three interconnected and interdependent aspects: social, psychological and linguistic proper. Phraseological euphemisms are divided into several phraseo-semantic groups from the point of view of their meaning, the most important of them are: euphemisms naming death and everything connected with it; euphemisms naming social evils, crimes, human vices and their consequencies: euphemisms naming poverty, hard financial situation; euphemisms naming mental deformities (disability): euphemisms naming some acts or conditions from the sphere of physiology: euphemisms referring to the sexual sphere. Each group is characterized by its own peculiarities and connected with different aspects mentioned above. Phraseological euphemisms may be used both in their core use and with different types of transformations. The search in the British National Corpus has shown that the most typical types of their contextual use are additions (both at the beginning, at the end or in the middle), phraseological reiteration, phraseological saturation of discourse. Extended metaphor, permutation and deletion occur rather seldom. All these types of phraseological euphemisms’ contextual usage are examples of innovations, which they may undergo in real speech. Such innovations make the message more precise, reinforce the meaning, add some additional details. They indicate the ease and fluency, which mark the native speaker or the competent foreigner in handling the language.