礼貌原则视角下的英语委婉语分析——以电影《阿甘正传》为例开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述包含参考文献）

1. introduction1.1 research backgroundeuphemism is not only a common linguistic phenomenon, but a cultural phenomenon in our daily life. it plays an important role in daily communication, we use euphemism to avoid talking about taboos, to express our feelings indirectly, and to save face in some embarrassing situations. in modern society, nobody can deny that euphemism has become an indispensable part in their communicative activities.many studies have been made about euphemism, such as the usage of euphemism in public situation, like politics and business, the comparison of euphemism between west and east, and the analysis of euphemism from pragmatic perspective. nevertheless, when other scholars made pragmatics analysis on euphemism, they were inclined to emphasize the violation of cooperative principle that was put forward by american linguistic philosopher grice in 1975. there is no doubt that we use euphemism for politeness, so the use of euphemism must follow politeness principle. the limitation is that previous studies did not point out clearly that euphemism follows which maxims of politeness principle. therefore, this thesis is aimed at the analysis of english euphemisms from the perspective of politeness principle, and the data is the dialogue of the movie forrest gump.1.2 need of studymaking clear which maxims of politeness principle are embodied in the english euphemisms is meaningful for academic research and english study. first, it helps us to have a deeper understanding of english euphemisms. if we use politeness principle to analyze english euphemisms, we can clearly know the function of euphemism and understand the importance of them. in other words, we can know why it is polite to use euphemism in some particular situations. second, it helps english learners to use euphemism more accurately in their english study. when we speak or write in english, we seldom use euphemism, we may just speak or write everything directly. the present study analyzes euphemism from the perspective of politeness principle, which leads english learners to use euphemism more frequently and accurately so that their expression will become more and more authentic. last but not least, we can learn english culture from the study of english euphemisms and cultivate the cross-culture awareness. because both the politeness principle and movie forrest gump belong to western culture, so there exists a cultural difference between west and east. for example, in chinese culture, people always tend to behave humbly when they are praised, while in western culture, it is more reasonable to accept the compliments from others naturally. therefore the analysis of english euphemisms from the perspective of politeness principle will help english learners to know the cultural background of english euphemisms and help them to learn more about english culture.1.3 research purposesthis thesis is aimed to investigate which maxims of politeness principle are embodied in the english euphemisms. in other words, this study aims to make clear the relationship between politeness principle and english euphemisms.2. literature review2.1 definitions of euphemismthere are lots of definitions about euphemism. according to wikipedia, an euphemism is a generally harmless word, name, or phrase that substitutes an offensive of suggestive one. some euphemisms intend to amuse, while others intend to give positive appearances to negative events or even mislead entirely. euphemism also often take the place of profanity.according to webster's encyclopedic unabridged dictionary of the english language, an euphemism is the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought substituted.according to oxford advanced learner's english-chinese dictionary, an euphemism is the use of pleasant, mild or indirect phrases in place of more accurate or direct ones.in this thesis, euphemism means an indirect and mild expression, which substitutes some offensive and direct words. if the speaker say something in another indirect way, i will consider the speaker used euphemisms.2.2 definition of politeness principlein 1983, g.leech put forward the politeness principle(pp). it includes six maxims that are stated below. the "self" in the maxims will normally be identified with speaker and "other" will be generally identified with hearer.(1). tact maxima. minimize cost to other.b. maximize benefit to other.(2). generosity maxima. minimize benefit to self.b. maximize cost to self.(3). approbation maxima. minimize dispraise of other.b.maximize praise of other.(4). modesty maxima. minimize praise of self.b. maximize dispraise of self.(5). agreement maxima. minimize disagreement between self and other.b. maximize agreement between self and other.(6). sympathy maxima. minimize antipathy between self and other.b. maximize sympathy between self and other.referenceshelene, h. 2010. political correctness, euphemism, and language change: the case of people first: journal of pragmatics, 3: 828-840.胡晓丽（2011），电影 《阿甘正传 》中委婉语的文化透视，《电影文学》，（1）：97-98。

李成团，冉永平（2014），虚假礼貌的实现方式及其语用特征分析，《上海外国语大学学报》，37（2）：42-51。

李兰冬，邢文英（2014），英语委婉语的生成机制与功用，《河北大学学报》，39（3）：146-148.李小芹（2015），基于《阿甘正传》对白看英语礼貌原则， 《电影评介》，（10）：57-58。

2. 研究的基本内容、问题解决措施及方案

The present paper makes research on English euphemisms from the perspective of Politeness Principle. The specific research question is: Which maxims of Politeness Principle are embodied in the English euphemisms?To solve the research question, firstly, I choose the dialogue of movie Forrest Gump as data. Then I collect the dialogue in which the speakers expressed their meaning in an indirect way instead of speaking directly, and I consider these dialogue including euphemisms. Secondly, I classify these dialogues by the reason of using euphemisms. For example, Gumps mother talked with Gump about the topic of death and she did not want to scare her son, so she used euphemism. Through this way, I divide these dialogue with euphemisms into four categories: death, sex, war and refusal. Thirdly, I use Politeness Principle to analyze these dialogue one by one, and I analyze which maxims of Politeness Principle are reflected in each dialogue. The last step is to calculate how many maxims are reflected in all these dialogue and what are they.