DOCSLIB.ORG

Argumentative Euphemisms, Political Correctness and Relevance

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Argumentative Euphemisms, Political Correctness and Relevance Thèse présentée à la Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines Institut des sciences du langage et de la communication Université de Neuchâtel Pour l'obtention du grade de Docteur ès Lettres Par Andriy Sytnyk Directeur de thèse: Professeur Louis de Saussure, Université de Neuchâtel Rapporteurs: Dr. Christopher Hart, Senior Lecturer, Lancaster University Dr. Steve Oswald, Chargé de cours, Université de Fribourg Dr. Manuel Padilla Cruz, Professeur, Universidad de Sevilla Thèse soutenue le 17 septembre 2014 Université de Neuchâtel 2014 2 Key words: euphemisms, political correctness, taboo, connotations, Relevance Theory, neo-Gricean pragmatics Argumentative Euphemisms, Political Correctness and Relevance Abstract The account presented in the thesis combines insights from relevance-theoretic (Sperber and Wilson 1995) and neo-Gricean (Levinson 2000) pragmatics in arguing that a specific euphemistic effect is derived whenever it is mutually manifest to participants of a communicative exchange that a speaker is trying to be indirect by avoiding some dispreferred saliently unexpressed alternative lexical unit(s). This effect is derived when the indirectness is not conventionally associated with the particular linguistic form-trigger relative to some context of use and, therefore, stands out as marked in discourse. The central theoretical claim of the thesis is that the cognitive processing of utterances containing novel euphemistic/politically correct locutions involves meta-representations of saliently unexpressed dispreferred alternatives, as part of relevance-driven recognition of speaker intentions. It is argued that hearers are “invited” to infer the salient dispreferred alternatives in the process of deriving explicatures of utterances containing lexical units triggering euphemistic/politically correct interpretations. In the course of time, such invited inferences can lead to semantic change by becoming routinized relative to some context of use and reanalyzed as the defeasible default meanings of these locutions, presumed in the absence of contextual assumptions to the contrary. This conventionalization process is responsible for euphemisms becoming “contaminated” with negative connotations associated with taboos, which leads to their recycling in the vernacular or ‘euphemism treadmill’. It also explains why political correctness is effective only when it is novel and still capable of bringing people’s unconscious biases to consciousness. The biases are, arguably, brought to consciousness by metarepresenting the salient dispreferred alternatives as part of comprehension of utterances containing PC locutions perceived to be marked in the given context. It is suggested that the likelihood of the euphemism treadmill taking place is increased in cases of narrowing the lexicalized meaning of a concept to its taboo meaning, while it is less likely to happen in cases of conceptual broadening. 3 Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere and profound gratitude to my supervisor, Louis de Saussure, for all the work he has put into directing this thesis, his intellectual guidance, continuous support, outstanding patience and believing that this project can be brought to fruition and to the University of Neuchâtel for accepting me as a doctorate student and supporting my research-related activities in Switzerland. Among the people whose contributions I would like to acknowledge gratefully are Svitlana Petrovska, who originally encouraged me to undertake research in linguistics. Some time later, Valery Mykhailenko streamlined my attention towards pragmatic aspects of communication, which eventually brought me to reading works of Vlad Žegarac and Billy Clark on phatic communication and Relevance Theory, which, in turn, ignited my interest in exploring the possibility of applying the tools of this cognitive-pragmatic theory to examining the dimensions of communication, traditionally analyzed within the frameworks of sociolinguistic theories. This thesis would not have come to life without the illuminating discussions with Steve Oswald, Patrick Morency, Mihaela Popa, Marina Terkourafi, Rachel Giora, Billy Clark and Manuel Padilla Cruz on the topics of euphemisms, political correctness, manipulation and the pragmatics of politeness. I am sure many scholars doing research within the framework of Relevance Theory feel as grateful as I am to Francisco Yus for constantly updating the Relevance Theory Online Bibliographic Service and to Nicholas Allott for maintaining the Relevance Theory Mailing List. I thank Volodymyr Khaloupko, Olexander Keba, Olexander Volkovynskiy and, certainly, my wife/colleague Nataliya Sytnyk for sharing their insightful thoughts and discussing various philological and philosophical issues pertaining to my research on many an occasion. I am also thankful to all my good friends and colleagues for the much needed sanity- preserving distractions from the thesis-writing process. Last but not least, I thank my family for their love and support. 4 Contents Introduction 8 Chapter 1. Pragmatics of verbal communication 16 1.1 The code model and Gricean pragmatics 16 1.2 Relevance-theoretic pragmatics 20 1.2.1 Theory of mind and mutual manifestness 20 1.2.2 The relevance-seeking processing model 23 1.2.3 The RT notion of context 28 1.2.4 Descriptive and interpretive use 30 1.2.5 The limitations of RT analysis 33 1.3 Presumptive vs. speaker-intended meanings 36 1.4 Processing figurative language 45 1.4.1 The priority of literal meaning 45 1.4.2 The salience of primary meanings 52 Chapter 2. Semiotics of x-phemisms 56 2.1 Taboo 56 2.1.1 Ancient fear-based taboos 56 2.1.2 Modern-day taboos 61 2.2 Synonymy and concepts 63 2.2.1 Absolute and near-synonymy 63 2.2.2 Connotations and perspectivization 68 2.2.3 Mental representation of concepts 75 2.2.3.1 Imagistic and propositional representations 75 2.2.3.2 Conceptual representation of cross-varietal synonyms 81 2.3 Definitions and suggested ways of formation 85 2.3.1 Lexical-semantic and structural means of euphemization 85 2.3.2 Euphemisms as conceptual metaphors/metonymies 90 Chapter 3. Political correctness: general issues 96 3.1 History and the origin of the term “PC” 96 3.2 PC as the marked choice 99 3.3 PC-inspired metonymic references 103 3.4 PC evaluated negatively 108 5 3.5 Mock PC, alternative curse words and creativity 112 Chapter 4. Functions of euphemisms/PC in discourse 118 4.1 Conventionalized vs. argumentative euphemisms 118 4.2. The issue of cooperativeness 124 4.3 Spheres of use: jargon and doublespeak 130 Chapter 5. X-phemisms/PC and intentionality 137 5.1 Euphemisms/PC as intentional acts of communication 137 5.2 Assessing the x-phemistic value 142 5.2.1 Derogatory and appropriated uses of slurs 142 5.2.2 To praise or to offend? 150 5.3 Explicating the euphemistic/PC intentions 157 5.4 Distinguishing euphemisms from PC 163 Chapter 6. X-phemisms/PC and (im)politeness 170 6.1 The Speech-Act theoretic view of (im)politeness 170 6.2 Politeness: inferred vs anticipated 178 6.3 X-phemisms/PC and (im)politeness 183 Chapter 7. X-phemisms/PC and ideology 188 7.1 PC and Critical Discourse Analysis 188 7.2 Framing the point of view in discourse 192 7.3 The manipulative dimension of euphemisms/PC 201 7.3.1 Manipulation and the depth of processing 201 7.3.2. Manipulation and theory of mind 204 Chapter 8. The online processing of utterances containing euphemisms/PC 210 8.1 The Gricean perspective 210 8.2 The RT perspective 213 8.2.1 Euphemisms as optimally relevant inferences 213 8.2.1 Processing effort as a criterion for markedness 217 8.2.3 Euphemisms/PC as echoic interpretive use 223 8.3 The conventionalization cline 234 Chapter 9. A lexical-pragmatic account of euphemism treadmill 243 9.1 Lexical pragmatics and semantic change 243 9.2 Euphemisms treadmill as semantic change 252 9.3 The sources of associative contamination 263 6 Conclusions 269 References 280 7 Introduction Introduction The thesis is intended as a contribution to the ongoing semantics/pragmatics interface debate. It pursues the general goal of attempting to ascertain what predictions pragmatic theories of communication can make in terms of the cognitive procedures brought to bear on the online processing of utterances containing lexical units, which trigger euphemistic/politically correct interpretations. The introductory chapter presents arguments for choosing euphemisms and political correctness as the object of the thesis, explains the relevance of the topic in the general context of pragmatics research and stresses the importance of undertaking a pragmatic approach to its investigation. Chapter 1 of the thesis reviews and critically assesses the main tenets of Gricean, relevance-theoretic and neo-Gricean pragmatics. It also reviews how various pragmatic theories deal with figurative language processing and what suggestions they make regarding the stages along which comprehension of what people intend to communicate when they speak figuratively takes place. Chapter 2 dwells on such semiotic notions as synonymy, ancient fear-based and contemporary taboos, connotations and markedness as relevant for the analysis of euphemisms. It reviews the issue of how concepts are represented in human cognitive systems and examines various definitions and ways of formation of euphemisms presented in extant research literature on the topic. Chapter 3 introduces the notion of political correctness (PC), reviews the history of the
Recommended publications
  • The Velocity of Censorship

    The Velocity of Censorship

    The Velocity of Censorship: High-Fidelity Detection of Microblog Post Deletions Tao Zhu, Independent Researcher; David Phipps, Bowdoin College; Adam Pridgen, Rice University; Jedidiah R. Crandall, University of New Mexico; Dan S. Wallach, Rice University This paper is included in the Proceedings of the 22nd USENIX Security Symposium. August 14–16, 2013 • Washington, D.C., USA ISBN 978-1-931971-03-4 Open access to the Proceedings of the 22nd USENIX Security Symposium is sponsored by USENIX The Velocity of Censorship: High-Fidelity Detection of Microblog Post Deletions Tao Zhu David Phipps Adam Pridgen [email protected] Computer Science Computer Science Independent Researcher Bowdoin College Rice University Jedidiah R. Crandall Dan S. Wallach Computer Science Computer Science University of New Mexico Rice University Abstract terconnected through their social graph and tend to post about sensitive topics. This biases us towards the content Weibo and other popular Chinese microblogging sites are posted by these particular users, but enables us to mea- well known for exercising internal censorship, to comply sure with high fidelity the speed of the censorship and with Chinese government requirements. This research discern interesting patterns in censor behaviors. seeks to quantify the mechanisms of this censorship: Sina Weibo (weibo.com, referred to in this paper sim- how fast and how comprehensively posts are deleted. ply as “Weibo”) has the most active user community of Our analysis considered 2.38 million posts gathered over any microblog site in China [39]. Weibo provides ser- roughly two months in 2012, with our attention focused vices which are similar to Twitter, with @usernames, on repeatedly visiting “sensitive” users.
  • How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics

    How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics

    GETTY CORUM IMAGES/SAMUEL How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics By Simon Clark July 2020 WWW.AMERICANPROGRESS.ORG How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics By Simon Clark July 2020 Contents 1 Introduction and summary 4 Tracing the origins of white supremacist ideas 13 How did this start, and how can it end? 16 Conclusion 17 About the author and acknowledgments 18 Endnotes Introduction and summary The United States is living through a moment of profound and positive change in attitudes toward race, with a large majority of citizens1 coming to grips with the deeply embedded historical legacy of racist structures and ideas. The recent protests and public reaction to George Floyd’s murder are a testament to many individu- als’ deep commitment to renewing the founding ideals of the republic. But there is another, more dangerous, side to this debate—one that seeks to rehabilitate toxic political notions of racial superiority, stokes fear of immigrants and minorities to inflame grievances for political ends, and attempts to build a notion of an embat- tled white majority which has to defend its power by any means necessary. These notions, once the preserve of fringe white nationalist groups, have increasingly infiltrated the mainstream of American political and cultural discussion, with poi- sonous results. For a starting point, one must look no further than President Donald Trump’s senior adviser for policy and chief speechwriter, Stephen Miller. In December 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch published a cache of more than 900 emails2 Miller wrote to his contacts at Breitbart News before the 2016 presidential election.
  • This Thesis Comes Within Category D

    This Thesis Comes Within Category D

    * SHL ITEM BARCODE 19 1721901 5 REFERENCE ONLY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON THESIS Degree Year i ^Loo 0 Name of Author COPYRIGHT This Is a thesis accepted for a Higher Degree of the University of London, it is an unpubfished typescript and the copyright is held by the author. All persons consulting the thesis must read and abide by the Copyright Declaration below. COPYRIGHT DECLARATION I recognise that the copyright of the above-described thesis rests with the author and that no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. LOANS Theses may not be lent to individuals, but the Senate House Library may lend a copy to approved libraries within the United Kingdom, for consultation solely on the .premises of those libraries. Application should be made to: Inter-Library Loans, Senate House Library, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. REPRODUCTION University of London theses may not be reproduced without explicit written permission from the Senate House Library. Enquiries should be addressed to the Theses Section of the Library. Regulations concerning reproduction vary according to the date of acceptance of the thesis and are listed below as guidelines. A. Before 1962. Permission granted only upon the prior written consent of the author. (The Senate House Library will provide addresses where possible). B. 1962 -1974. In many cases the author has agreed to permit copying upon completion of a Copyright Declaration. C. 1975 -1988. Most theses may be copied upon completion of a Copyright Declaration. D. 1989 onwards. Most theses may be copied.
  • Israeli Media Self-Censorship During the Second Lebanon War

    Israeli Media Self-Censorship During the Second Lebanon War

    conflict & communication online, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2019 www.cco.regener-online.de ISSN 1618-0747 Sagi Elbaz & Daniel Bar-Tal Voluntary silence: Israeli media self-censorship during the Second Lebanon War Kurzfassung: Dieser Artikel beschreibt die Charakteristika der Selbstzensur im Allgemeinen, und insbesondere in den Massenmedien, im Hinblick auf Erzählungen von politischer Gewalt, einschließlich Motivation und Auswirkungen von Selbstzensur. Es präsentiert zunächst eine breite theoretische Konzeptualisierung der Selbstzensur und konzentriert sich dann auf seine mediale Praxis. Als Fallstudie wurde die Darstellung des Zweiten Libanonkrieges in den israelischen Medien untersucht. Um Selbstzensur als einen der Gründe für die Dominanz hegemonialer Erzählungen in den Medien zu untersuchen, führten die Autoren Inhaltsanalysen und Tiefeninterviews mit ehemaligen und aktuellen Journalisten durch. Die Ergebnisse der Analysen zeigen, dass israelische Journalisten die Selbstzensur weitverbreitet einsetzen, ihre Motivation, sie zu praktizieren, und die Auswirkungen ihrer Anwendung auf die Gesellschaft. Abstract: This article describes the characteristics of self-censorship in general, specifically in mass media, with regard to narratives of political violence, including motivations for and effects of practicing self-censorship. It first presents a broad theoretical conceptualization of self-censorship, and then focuses on its practice in media. The case study examined the representation of The Second Lebanon War in the Israeli national media. The authors carried out content analysis and in-depth interviews with former and current journalists in order to investigate one of the reasons for the dominance of the hegemonic narrative in the media – namely, self-censorship. Indeed, the analysis revealed widespread use of self-censorship by Israeli journalists, their motivations for practicing it, and the effects of its use on the society.
  • Certainty and the Censor's Dilemma Robert Corn-Revere

    Certainty and the Censor's Dilemma Robert Corn-Revere

    Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly Volume 45 Article 4 Number 2 Winter 2018 1-1-2018 Certainty and the Censor's Dilemma Robert Corn-Revere Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/ hastings_constitutional_law_quaterly Part of the Constitutional Law Commons Recommended Citation Robert Corn-Revere, Certainty and the Censor's Dilemma, 45 Hastings Const. L.Q. 301 (2018). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_constitutional_law_quaterly/vol45/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Certainty and the Censor's Dilemma by ROBERT CORN-REVERE* Pity the plight of poor Anthony Comstock. The man H. L. Mencken described as "the Copernicus of a quite new art and science," who literally invented the profession of antiobscenity crusader in the waning days of the nineteenth century, ultimately got, as legendary comic Rodney Dangerfield would say, "no respect, no respect at all." As head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, and special agent for the U.S. Post Office under a law that popularly bore his name, Comstock was, in Mencken's words, the one "who first capitalized moral endeavor like baseball or the soap business, and made himself the first of its kept professors."' For more than four decades, Comstock terrorized writers, publishers, and artists-driving some to suicide-yet he also was the butt of public ridicule.
  • Euphemism in Animated Films a Multimodal And

    Euphemism in Animated Films a Multimodal And

    Seeing the unseen: Euphemism in Animated Films A Multimodal and Critical Discourse Study by Dalia Abyd Asseel M.A. (Linguistics) A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE LANCASTER UNIVERSITY, UK JULY 2020 Abstract Animated films are contemporary popular cultural products recreating the ‘real’ world and engaging massive worldwide audiences of adults and children. Children as the ostensible viewers of animated films may acquire their cultural and ideological knowledge and beliefs about the world from the representations in animated films. Although during the past decade animated films have increasingly been the focus of attention of researchers across different disciplines, including education, gender, sexuality and literacy, studies tackling the discourse and language of animated films are still in their early stages. More specifically, very few studies have investigated the use of euphemism as a major micro-level linguistic device reflecting macro-level discourse and extending to sociocultural structures. To this end, this thesis examines euphemism constructed through the discourse of animated films by employing the strategies of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). Moreover, Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) is employed to examine discursive strategies involving visual representations accompanying euphemism and what underpins those strategies, and to shed light on the multimodal relations between the representation of both. Euphemism is frequently associated with the notion of taboo. Consequently, new words or phrases are designated to refer to linguistic taboos as alternatives used by speakers to minimise the threat to the audience’s face as well as to their own.
  • Terrorism & Internet Governance

    Terrorism & Internet Governance

    Terrorism & Internet Governance: Core Issues Maura Conway School of Law & Government Dublin City University Glasnevin Dublin 9 Ireland [email protected] ______________________________________________________________________ Introduction Both global governance and the sub-set of issues that may be termed ‘internet governance’ are vast and complex issue areas. The difficulties of trying to ‘legislate’ at the global level – efforts that must encompass the economic, cultural, developmental, legal, and political concerns of diverse states and other stakeholders – are further complicated by the technological conundrums encountered in cyberspace. The unleashing of the so-called ‘Global War on Terrorism’ (GWOT) complicates things yet further. Today, both sub-state and non-state actors are said to be harnessing – or preparing to harness – the power of the internet to harass and attack their foes. Clearly, international terrorism had already been a significant security issue prior to 11 September 2001 (hereafter ‘9/11’) and the emergence of the internet in the decade before. Together, however, the events of 9/11 and advancements in ICTs have added new dimensions to the problem. In newspapers and magazines, in film and on television, and in research and analysis, ‘cyber-terrorism’ has become a buzzword. Since the events of 9/11, the question on everybody’s lips appears to be ‘is cyber- terrorism next?’ It is generally agreed that the potential for a ‘digital 9/11’ in the near future is not great. This does not mean that IR scholars may continue to ignore the transformative powers of the internet. This paper explores the difficulties of internet governance in the light of terrorists’ increasing use of the medium.
  • Memorial Struggles and Power Strategies of the Rights in Latin America Today

    Memorial Struggles and Power Strategies of the Rights in Latin America Today

    http://doi.org/10.17163/uni.n31.2019.01 Memorial struggles and power strategies of the rights in Latin America today Luchas memoriales y estrategias de poder de las derechas en América Latina hoy Verónica Giordano Teacher and Researcher UBA and CONICET [email protected] Orcid code: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7299-6984 Gina Paola Rodríguez Teacher and Researcher UNLPam and UBA [email protected] Orcid code: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1702-3386 Abstract Recently, right-wing forces of different origins and types have sprung up in Latin America. In this article, four countries are studied: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru. The first two correspond to cases in which the right-wing groups stand in opposition to the so-called progressive governments. The other two correspond to cases in which they stand in a political system with a strong continuity of predominance of right-wing forces. Since there are few studies with an overall perspective, this article seeks to make a contribution in that direction. The objective is to analyze the non-electoral strategies of construction and/ or exercise of power implemented by the right-wing groups around the memorial struggles. Based on the review of journalistic sources and speeches of the national right-wing referents, this article analyzes how current right-wing groups have proceeded to the institution of languages and the definition of a field of meanings that dispute the meaning of the recent past. From a comparative perspective, it is argued that in all four cases negationism offers an effective repertoire for these groups, which is used in their non- electoral (as well as electoral) strategies for building hegemony at the cultural level.
  • Page Proof Instructions and Queries

    Page Proof Instructions and Queries

    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by The IT University of Copenhagen's Repository Page Proof Instructions and Queries Journal Title: Current Sociology 837536CSI Article Number: 837536 Thank you for choosing to publish with us. This is your final opportunity to ensure your article will be accurate at publication. Please review your proof carefully and respond to the queries using the circled tools in the image below, which are available by clicking “Comment” from the right-side menu in Adobe Reader DC.* Please use only the tools circled in the image, as edits via other tools/methods can be lost during file conversion. For com- ments, questions, or formatting requests, please use . Please do not use comment bubbles/sticky notes . *If you do not see these tools, please ensure you have opened this file with Adobe Reader DC, available for free a t https://get.adobe.com/reader or by going to Help > Check for Updates within other versions of Reader. For more detailed instructions, please see https://us.sagepub.com/ReaderXProofs. No. Query Please note, only ORCID iDs validated prior toNo acceptance queries will be authorized for publication; we are unable to add or amend ORCID iDs at this stage. Please confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence, and contact details, is correct. Please review the entire document for typographical errors, mathematical errors, and any other necessary corrections; check headings, tables, and figures. Please ensure that you have obtained and enclosed all necessary permissions for the reproduction of art works (e.g.
  • The Euphemism in 'Us and North Korea Summit' News Articles of the New York Times Online

    The Euphemism in 'Us and North Korea Summit' News Articles of the New York Times Online

    IR - PERPUSTAKAAN UNIVERSITAS AIRLANGGA 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background of The Study Media is in the center of a struggle for power and control in any society (McChesney 2004). Media also has much potential to influence public’s attitudes and bring much attention to guide public’s opinions (Dickson 1992). Media producers determine their influence; they have the power to choose which facts or stories are included or excluded, how events are presented, and how viewers are positioned as the subject of the media. Thus, the primary function of media is framing the information in a desirable ideological perspective, and the producers emphasize this power in media appropriately by using precise language devices such as euphemism, the most effective control for power in the media (Ryabova 2013). As Orwell stated in Ryabova, “…political speech and writing are largely the defenses of the indefensible. Political language consists largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness” (Ryabova 2013). This statement relates to the definition of euphemism mentioned by Brekle (1989), euphemism is a sort of semantic camouflage and an instrument to frame the mindset or the ideology of the mass (Brekle 1989). Originally, euphemism is derived from Greek roots, it is made up of eu- which means good, and pheme, which denotes speech, voice, utterance, or speaking (Šebková 2012). In a broad definition, Burridge (2012) considered euphemism as a sweet or at least harmless alternative to phrases that speakers or 1 SKRIPSI THE EUPHEMISM IN... FIRDA AYU ADILAH IR - PERPUSTAKAAN UNIVERSITAS AIRLANGGA 2 authors prefer not to use in the execution of a specific communicative purpose on a specific occasion (Burridge 2012).
  • The Concept of Euphemism, Its History, Possible Classifications, and Euphemistic Strategies from Pragmatic Point of View

    The Concept of Euphemism, Its History, Possible Classifications, and Euphemistic Strategies from Pragmatic Point of View

    VILNIUS PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH PHILOLOGY LAURA SAMOŠKAITĖ 21ST CENTURY POLITICAL EUPHEMISMS IN ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS: SEMANTIC AND STRUCTURAL STUDY MA PAPER Academic advisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Linas Selmistraitis Vilnius, 2011 VILNIUS PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH PHILOLOGY 21ST CENTURY POLITICAL EUPHEMISMS IN ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS: SEMANTIC AND STRUCTURAL STUDY This MA paper is submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of the MA in English Philology By Laura Samoškaitė I declare that this study is my own and does not contain any unacknowledged work from any source Academic advisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Linas Selmistraitis 1 CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………….…..3 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………….….4 I. EUPHEMISMS AS SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE MEANS OF COMMUNICATION….…6 1.1 Conceptual features of euphemism………………………………………………………..6 1.2 Semantic and structural differentiation of euphemisms………………………………….12 1.3 Euphemistic strategies from pragmatic point of view……………………………………17 1.4 Political euphemisms in political discourse………………………………………………20 II. EUPHEMISMS IN POLITICAL TEXTS OF THE 21ST CENTURY……………………..26 2.1 Semantic features of political euphemisms………………………………………………26 2.2 Application of B. Warren’s model to political euphemisms……………………………..46 CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………………………………53 SUMMARY……………………………………………………………………………………55 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………56 2 Abstract The aim of this study is to explore the political euphemisms that are used in the English newspapers of the 21st century and analyse their semantic and structural features. The objectives of the analysis are: to examine theoretical approaches and studies concerning the concept and features of euphemisms; to identify the political euphemisms used in today’s English newspapers; to group euphemisms into classes according to semantic features; and to analyse structural and semantic peculiarities of political euphemisms.
  • Founding Fathers" in American History Dissertations

    Founding Fathers" in American History Dissertations

    EVOLVING OUR HEROES: AN ANALYSIS OF FOUNDERS AND "FOUNDING FATHERS" IN AMERICAN HISTORY DISSERTATIONS John M. Stawicki A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS December 2019 Committee: Andrew Schocket, Advisor Ruth Herndon Scott Martin © 2019 John Stawicki All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Andrew Schocket, Advisor This thesis studies scholarly memory of the American founders and “Founding Fathers” via inclusion in American dissertations. Using eighty-one semi-randomly and diversely selected founders as case subjects to examine and trace how individual, group, and collective founder interest evolved over time, this thesis uniquely analyzes 20th and 21st Century Revolutionary American scholarship on the founders by dividing it five distinct periods, with the most recent period coinciding with “founders chic.” Using data analysis and topic modeling, this thesis engages three primary historiographic questions: What founders are most prevalent in Revolutionary scholarship? Are social, cultural, and “from below” histories increasing? And if said histories are increasing, are the “New Founders,” individuals only recently considered vital to the era, posited by these histories outnumbering the Top Seven Founders (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine) in founder scholarship? The thesis concludes that the Top Seven Founders have always dominated founder dissertation scholarship, that social, cultural, and “from below” histories are increasing, and that social categorical and “New Founder” histories are steadily increasing as Top Seven Founder studies are slowly decreasing, trends that may shift the Revolutionary America field away from the Top Seven Founders in future years, but is not yet significantly doing so.