communication competence

5. Application of Euphemism in Life

5.1 Euphemism in Advertisement

Advertising English is an applied language. It includes informative advertising and persuasive advertising. Euphemism really plays an important role in it.

As we know that the language in advertisements is the key of success, which should be easy to understand as well as attractive to the public. Euphemism is “(the use of a) mild or vague or periphrastic expression as a substitute for blunt precision or disagreeable truth.”(Fowler, 1991:24) It is obvious that euphemism has such characteristics that it suits for the purposes of advertisement very well. In order to achieve the persuasive effect, the language in advertisements should also be correct, concise and vivid, to impress the consumers deeply and arouse their desire to buy the products. For these reasons, the advertisement designer should have a good grasp of both the features and the functions of euphemism that it can cater for the business purpose. For example, a coffee brand named Maxwell House put its advertising in this way, “Good to the last drop!” It shows that it’s so good drinking that customers will eat the last drop. To some people, it really calls their attention to this brand production and even buy it.

Euphemism is widely used in advertisement; it makes the ads more creative and profitable.

5.2 Euphemism in Diplomacy

Communication is important for human beings, especially to those diplomats or statesmen because they deal with the relationships between countries or regions etc., so the words that they use are more sensitive than others. Otherwise, their communication may become difficult or break down and sometimes it can even affect the relations between countries. Since the purpose of using euphemisms is using good words to reduce the unpleasantness of a term or notion. It is natural and reasonable that diplomats or statesmen will often use them. They can use euphemisms to soften harsh reality and pretend governmental inability to social problems, etc.. In reality we can also find that euphemisms are often used in press conferences and we may also find that sometimes communications may be difficult or even break down because of the incorrect use of diplomatic euphemisms or the misunderstanding of diplomatic euphemisms. So the study of diplomatic euphemisms seems to be of great significance and it can help people like diplomats etc. to avoid misunderstandings or mistranslations in communications and it can also help them to improve their intercultural communication competence and ability etc..

In some cases, people especially the diplomats or statesmen do not want to say what they mean directly and hence they would choose to use diplomatic euphemisms in order to express their meaning in a roundabout way in order to conduct successful and happy interactions in press conferences. Therefore in communications like press conferences, the diplomats, journalists or speakers etc. usually use diplomatic euphemisms in order to be polite and keep face or for some other reasons under the cooperative circumstances.

As a kind of euphemism, diplomatic euphemism shares the general features of euphemism. As it is mentioned before that euphemism is the substitution of mild or vague or roundabout expression for harsh or blunt or direct one; a polite, tactful or less explicit term used to avoid the direct naming of an unpleasant, painful or frightening reality. Hence from the definition, it can be found that euphemism is partly created for politeness.