Novel euphemisms in political discourse

What is it about?

I explore the differences in the interpretation of novel veiling and concealing euphemisms from a relevance-theoretic perspective. The research shows that the relevance of a novel veiling euphemism is established (1) via the adjustment of its linguistically encoded meaning so that it communicates the meaning encoded by a dispreferred expression, which is derived as an explicature, or (2) via its linguistically encoded meaning, derived as an explicature, and the meaning encoded by a dispreferred expression, recovered as a strong implicature. By contrast, novel concealing euphemisms achieve relevance by communicating their linguistically encoded meaning, derived as an explicature, as well as a range of weak implicatures. The recovery of weakly implicit content is not essential for inferring the speaker’s meaning.

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Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Why is it important?

My findings show that euphemistic meaning can be communicated explicitly and implicitly, as well as strongly and weakly. Vague expressions are good candidates for novel veiling and concealing euphemisms. The latter are used by politicians to represent the truth in a self-serving manner and to sway the audience in a preferred direction.

Perspectives