英语论文网

sease
4)外来词
拉丁词或法语词给人以高雅之感或专业化极强,人们未必有耐心深究其含义,因此它们就被借
来作委婉语:abattoir ,deregionalize, deux ex mahina,nude.
5)折绕语:
冗长的词组或冗长句子令听话者的注意力偏离话题中心:
贫困:economically disadvantaged individuals
武器开发:reconnaissance forces sweeping
人所共知的关于贫困的委婉语:
At first I was poor, then I became needy, later I was underprivileged. Now I’m disadvantaged, I still don’t have a cent to my name, but I sure have a great vocabulary.
7)语法
用复合句,否定词,情态动词,均可达到委婉的修辞效果:
She is working at her level and might do better with help.
Johnny is temporarily unwaged between jobs.
Though I am currently underutilized, my ex-boss promised me to be the first to come back to office when business is up.
3. 政治委婉语
谈到政治委婉语,许多人就会联想起George Orwell和他的政治讽刺作品: 1984和《动物庄园》。在Politics and the English Language (1946)一文中,他提到:“Political language is…designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind…To think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration.”
由此还派生出另外一个单词———奥威尔式的语言(Orwellian speech),专指“1984”和其它讽刺小说中描写的各种各样不民主或带有政治欺诈性语言或行为:“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”,“That society was characterized by constant surveillance of its citizens, and omnipresent media controlling their minds with propaganda, torture of dissidents, and especially newspeak”。
每当有重大政治事件发生时,在官方文献及媒体中总会产生大量委婉语。二战期间纳粹德国使用大量委婉语:Ruckkehr unerwunscht (return unwanted, to kill), strategic camp (concentration camp), final solution (mass killing of Jewish people)。
纵观近几十年的国际风云变幻,美国可谓政治委婉语生产大户。由于历史原因,美国在当今世界舞台上缺乏势均力敌的对手,因此摆出一副“国际警察”的面孔,随意评判别国是非,插手国际事务。人权,人道主义危机,核武器研发,邪恶轴心,不一而足。有人给美国特有的这类语言起了个名字“Pentagonese”。
军事行动一向是政治的延伸,在战争中只有进攻(advance)而没有撤退(retreats);只有胜利,没有失败(defeats)。“空袭”一般被描写成“air support,a routine limited duration, protective action”。越战中,对越方人员的的包抄杀灭被称为“Wasting the enemy”或“pacification”,美方人员伤亡一向是“light casualties”。
1980年美国武装营救被伊朗扣押的人质行动失败,这次行动被称为“an incomplete success”。1983年美国军队入侵Grenada,记者多次使用“invasion”,里根总统大为光火,坚持说这是“a rescue mission”,尽管里根总统本人首先用了“invasion”。突然袭击一般都是“preemptive strikes”(先发制人);外科手术的目的在于去掉其坏的,腐烂、病变部位,颠覆敌方政府的军事行动是“A surgical strike”,大有惩恶扬善的味道[6]。
1986年,美国与利比亚关系紧张,当时的里根政府针对卡扎菲(Muammar Quddafi)在舆论