Euphemistic Expression in Business English and Their Translation 商业英语委婉语及其翻译.docx

1、Euphemistic Expression in Business English and Their Translation 商业英语委婉语及其翻译Euphemistic Expression in Business English and Their TranslationIntroductionAs the cooperation of business overall the world becoming more and more frequent, people pay more attention to the etiquette of international busine

2、ss. The area of business is often compared to the battlefield, however, the weapons in business is different from those in the war. They do not apply to munitions but the polite expressions, appropriate writings and euphemistic utterances to establish the profile of a company and to satisfy the vari

3、ed needs of their customers, which form the outstanding features of the business language. To establish a perfect profile of companies, the businessmen often turn to the euphemisms which are polite, appropriate, and euphemistic when they need to express their wishes and opinions, and at the time the

4、y need to come up with some suggestions or requirements. Euphemism and euphemistic expressions are widely used in business English which nearly cover all processes, such as inquiry, offer, counter-offer, shipment, insurance and status inquiry. In Chinese, people often apply to 您, 贵 to show the respe

5、ct to their customers, to 请to suggest, to 是否, 能否,可否 to weaken modality. Compared with Chinese euphemism, the euphemistic expressions in English are quiet varied and flexible. This paper analyzes euphemistic expressions in business English from the aspects of grammar and glossary to help us to unders

6、tand and appropriate euphemism.Euphemism plays an indispensable part in our social life, which aids to achieve successful social interchange and co-ordinate human rapport. Being a kind of lubricant in business, euphemism has caught more and more attentions of enterprises and linguistics. By study cl

7、osely to the language pattern, we will be more qualified to throw ourselves into the business world. Despite the large number of studies done on euphemism, we find that euphemistic expression in business English as a sub-stream, still has further room to explore. Considering the importance of euphem

8、ism in business English and the translation of the euphemistic expressions in everyday use, we believe it is of significance to study it. As a result of this, my essay endeavours to approach the issue from the classification and the translation grounds. We believe the principles, the study of langua

9、ge use can render us the nature, motivation real meaning and functioning mechanism of the euphemistic expression used in business English.This thesis contains three parts, which can be further divided into three chapters.Part one introduces the definition and origins of euphemism, which we hope to p

10、ave way for our further analysis.Part two is the major part of the essay which includes two clues-the first part presents the principle and standards when we use the euphemisms in business English; in the second part presents a literature review to the classification of the euphemism in glossary and

11、 grammar.Part three is also an important part in the paper in which various strategies are listed so that we can understand and use the euphemism more fluently in business English. Because the euphemism is so important in business English, we have to figure out how they are used in business communic

12、ations. When we research the negotiations and other patterns of international business, euphemisms can be found through the whole process: inquiry, offer, count-offer and acceptance etc. There is a great amount of English euphemism; undoubtedly, the translation of euphemism becomes extraordinarily v

13、ital in business communication.Therefore, this paper will give a scientific classification of the euphemistic expression in business English together with some principles of its application, in order to present a systematic knowledge about English euphemism in business. As for the translation, the p

14、aper will try to state the appropriate strategies and also some principles. In this way, we will be more qualified in the international business.Chapter One Definition and Development of Euphemism1.1 The Definition of EuphemismThe word euphemism is derived from a Greek word meaning fair speech. The

15、prefix eu means good, sound well and pheme means saying and speaking. Hence the literal meaning of euphemism is to speak with good words or in a good manner. It is defined an indirect word or phrase that people often use to refer to something embarrassing or unpleasant, sometimes to make it seem mor

16、e acceptable than it really is in the Advanced Learners English-Chinese dictionary. The euphemism is used to avoid taboos to achieve ideal communication. It is such an important social-cultural phenomenon that we should place a great attention on it. A good knowledge can help to improve social commu

17、nication.In current English dictionaries，euphemisms are defined as follows:l) Substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered blunt or offensive. (American Heritage Dictionary，the 3rd edition，1992)2) Word, etc. used in place of one avoided as e.g. offensive，indecent，or alarming. (Oxford Conci

18、se Dictionary of Linguistics，Shanghai Foreign Languages Publishing House，2000，12)1.2 The Development of Euphemism As we all know, language is usually regarded as a mirror reflecting society. Then, euphemism, which is a crucial part of language in view of communication, reflects the phenomenon of peo

19、ples psychological world. Euphemism originated from primitive society. At that time, people believed that language was not only a symbol but also with magic power. It could bring them misfortunes as well as fortunes, mentioning a certain things ran the risk of being punished, so they usually avoided

20、 these taboos. For example, one of the Ten Commandments in Bible was Thou shalt not speak my name in vain. Thus God was generally called as Gad, J. C., the almighty, the Creator, and Satan as the Goodman, Black One, the Old Gentleman, etc. Nowadays there are still a lot of euphemisms used in the sim

21、ilar way. E.g. people would try to avoid such taboos as old, disease or death as they mean something unhappy. For old people, there are euphemisms such as senior citizens, golden age, seasoned man, the elderly, etc; for diseases, there are also many euphemisms, such as Aids, TB, Big C, social diseas

22、e, mental trouble, etc; and for death, depart, sleep, go home, join the majority, are frequently used. As time goes on, people begin to use euphemism not only to avoid taboos, but also to speak in a polite and elegant way, and to avoid unhappiness in conversations.English euphemism acts like a kind

23、of lubricant which makes communications going on smoothly. As an important social-cultural phenomenon, euphemism has aroused great interests of the experts and scholars at home and abroad. They had given detailed description to euphemism, in western countries; euphemism is closely connected with tra

24、ditional taboos such as disease, sex, death, excretion, etc. They are defensive in nature, offsetting the power of tabooed terms and otherwise eradicating from the language everything that people prefer not to deal with directly. Gradually, the euphemism has become an independent research area, whos

25、e main branch is the euphemistic expressions in business English.Since the people involved in business are from different cultural backgrounds, they have to avoid the taboos from different cultural communities in communication. As the international business develops, the euphemistic expression has d

26、eveloped into a main branch in the study of euphemism.Chapter Two Euphemistic Expression in Business EnglishIn business English, people can not survive with euphemistic expression. The euphemism exists in every stage of the international business: inquiry, offer, count-offer, shipment and etc. Regar

27、ding to the different cultural backgrounds and long distance of the shipment, there are often some disputes and misunderstandings in the international business. If there are not euphemisms, the business could not go forward because of some direct and unpleasant words. On the contrary, the euphemism

28、aids to deal with some taboos and conflicts, which makes the international business become more and more smoothly. When people use the euphemistic expression, they are always obeying to three principles: cooperative principle, politeness principle and facial principle. The three principles are concl

29、uded by their functions: avoidance, politeness and gloss-over function. However, the paper endeavors to the different ways to use the euphemistic expression in business English according to the functions and principles.2.1 Standards and Principles of the Euphemistic Expressions in Business English2.

30、1. 1 Cooperative Principle and the Euphemistic Expression in Business EnglishPaul Grice, a philosopher and logician, made an attempt to explain the course of natural conversation, in which implied messages are frequently involved. His idea is that in making conversation, the participants must first

31、of all be willing to cooperate; otherwise, it would not be possible for them to carry on the talk. The general principle is called Cooperative Principle, abbreviated as CP. It goes as follows:Make your conversational contribution such as required at the stage at which it occurs by the accepted purpo

32、se or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engage.The CP has four branches, which are flouted by euphemism.The maxim of quantity requires what one says should be informative but do not make if more informative than needs. The maxim of quality requires one not to say what you believe to be

33、 false and not to say that for which you lack adequate evidence. The maxim of relation requires one has to say what to be relevant. In ordinary conversations, people often say things that are not relevant with the topic of the conversation. In Chinese, there is a saying goes顾左右而言他. The maxim of manner requires one to avoid obsc