Psychology Research 07 (2012) 1838—658X
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Psychology Research
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The Implication of Euphemisms in College English Teaching
—From the Perspective of Relevance Theory
Zhongwei ZHAI
School of Foreign Studies, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454150, Henan, P.R.China
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Implication of euphemisms,
Relevance theory,
English learning,
Affective teaching
Euphemism, as a common linguistic phenomenon, is an important strategy of harmonizing
interpersonal relationship. Also Euphemism can help alleviate stiffness of conversation and
liven embarrassment in conversations. During English teaching, teachers, must on one hand
give a faithful appraisal of students’ cases; and on the other hand take into consideration
students’ psychological health and endurance, thus to alleviate the impact of
straightforwardness, the application of euphemisms is of much significance. The study on
implication of euphemisms or euphemistic expressions in teaching is mostly from the
perspective of pragmatics. But pragmatics neglects the important role of communicators as
cognitive subjects during communicating, and regards the context as static and given.
Relevance theory is a cognitive theory concerned about human communication and utterance
understanding. Relevance theory expounds the mechanism of utterance production and
understanding and points out that communication is actually a dynamic process of ostension
and inference.
Based on previous scholars’ fruit of research, the author attempts to make a study on
implication of euphemisms in college English teaching from the perspective of relevance
theory and get some edification for the second language teaching. So this article discoveries
from the perspective of relevance theory on implication of euphemisms in college English
teaching can promote more emphasis on affective teaching, will eventually be helpful to
raise college English teaching effects and build harmonious teaching atmosphere.
© ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD
I Introduction
As Enright, D.J. said in Fair of Speech, “a language without euphemism, the world would grind, unoiled to a halt, universal
animosity covering all”. Euphemism is a universal linguistic phenomenon, which is widely used no matter in which era or which
culture. Since the moment it was coined, it has played an important role in people’s daily communication. The study on implication
of euphemisms or euphemistic expressions in teaching is mostly from the perspective of pragmatics.

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected]
English edition copyright © ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD
DOI: 10. 5503/J. PR. 2012.07.008
36
II Studies from the Pragmatic Perspective
With the development of modern linguistics, especially pragmatics, the research on euphemism has no longer been confined to static
lexical or rhetorical research, but has drawn more attention from the pragmatic viewpoint. It is not only natural but also necessary to
expand the study of euphemisms from the pragmatic perspective—to study the use and understanding of euphemisms as well as the
principles that people should obey in using euphemisms in social communication. More and more linguists locate euphemism in
pragmatics as the main purpose of achieving satisfactory communicative results, namely, pragmatic results. However, the studies are
mostly carried out in one field, emphasizing one factor but overlooking the other factors in euphemism. As a pragmatic approa ch,
Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory has great explanatory power compared with the others.
III Relevance Theory
Relevance theory is acknowledged to be set up in the light of the fundamental idea of Grice’s, but it is not the simple revision and
extension of Grice’s theory. It has absorbed the previous essence of academic studies on the contemporary cognitive science,
linguistic philosophy and human behavior science and thus has enriched its theoretical ground. It is a truth that Sperber & Wilson, put
forward the more influencing Relevance Theory from the angle of cognition, which aims to provide a better theoretical framework
for exploring the relationship between linguistic forms and pragmatic understanding from the perspective of cognition.
On the basis of code model and inferential model, relevance theory put forward ostensive-inferential model during communication:
communication in RT is, in a sense, a kind of ostensive-inferential communication. Relevance theory, starting from the human’s
cognitive features and process, regards communication as a cognitive activity, claiming that for human cognition, there is a general
goal—attempting to gain maximal cognitive effects with the least effort during cognitive process and in order to realize this purpose,
human must concentrate on the most relevant information. According to this theory, speakers generally largely make information
manifest so that listeners would pay only least cost to understand utterance, thus speakers will restrict listeners in the search for
utterance relevance.
IV Application of Euphemisms in College English Teaching
During college English teaching, teachers, on one hand, must give a faithful feedback to students’ condition; and on the other hand,
must take into consideration students’ psychological health and endurance, thus to alleviate the impact of straightforwardness. As we
all know, euphemism is an indirect and roundabout way or expression employed by people to talk about something unpleasant or
offensive. In communication, it can make the unpleasant things sound better, and make people feel good; it can make both speaker
and hearer safe without losing face. During English teaching, communication between teachers and students, in order to fulfill
teaching requirements, is very common. Sometimes, what teachers said to students unconsciously offend students or make students
embarrassed.
The application of euphemisms during college English teaching can be shown in mainly two ways: firstly, as a teaching strategy;
secondly, as the teaching content. Teachers are not willing to offend students by speaking too bluntly or directly and usually choose a
softer word or expression to convey the same message. The following are implication of euphemisms or euphemistic expressions in
college English teaching. Euphemisms can be used to raise questions, to give advice or directions, to give evaluations.
As we know, in our English teaching, it is inevitable to face some sensitive topics to mention or talk about under embarrassing
circumstances, and straightforwardness will make both the teacher and students feel uncomfortable, and in addition, that is against
the requirement of education. Euphemisms will enable both teachers and students free from the embarrassing dilemmas.
V Interpreting English Euphemisms from the Perspective of Relevance Theory
Relevance theory has two principles: the cognitive principle of maximum relevance and the communicative principle of optimal
relevance. The principles of relevance should be taken into consideration for interpreting euphemisms’ producing and understanding
mechanism. Every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance.
According to relevance theory, verbal communication is a process of cognition, analyzing euphemisms from the perspective of
principles of relevance, actually is exploring how teachers’ information influence and change students’ cognitive environment during
class teaching from the angle of cognition, and create adequate assumptions to make students understand teachers’ communicative
intention during the information processing.
An example is given below to show how the principles of relevance govern identification of implicatures of the euphemizing
expression or euphemisms during class teaching.
(1) T (teacher): Would you like to give me your idea about the advantages of owning a car?
S (student): Sorry, I have no idea.
T (teacher): Never mind, I believe you will make it next time.
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The above is a dialogue between the teacher and the student. As we all know, for teachers, asking questions in class is one of the most
basic teaching approaches to guide students understand and grasp knowledge. And it can also give full play of students’ learning
initiatives. Also with asking questions, teachers and students can communicate with information and teachers can get timely feedback
helpful to adjust teaching activities. Lastly, asking questions can increase students’ thinking ability and creativity.
Most of the Chinese college students do not like to answer questions in class, for they have some anxiety that they will give wrong
answers. In the dialogue, the teacher uses past tense of the model verb “would you like to …” to raise the question instead of using
imperative sentence “give me your idea about…” or “answer me the question”. The teacher aims to not only test how much the
students know but also do not want to hurt students’ feeling when they fail to answer it. Also the teacher knows very well that what
he uttered can protect students’ face and avoid embarrassments if students fail to answer it. So after the teacher asks the question, in
the student’s mind, the following assumptions can be produced:
(a): The teacher is saying something.
(b): The teacher is uttering an interrogative sentence.
(c): The teacher is asking question in a polite way.
(d): The teacher wants me to answer his question and also does not want me to lose face if I can’t answer it.
The four assumptions above are all concerned with the student. While in this context, assumption (b) is more relevant than (a),
because it can produce more cognitive effect. And (c) has more relevance than (d), though from them both the same conclusion can
be drawn, it is easier to draw the conclusion from (c) than from (d); for understanding (d) will make more efforts than understanding
(c), (c) can produce more contextual effects. Compared with (b), (c) possesses more relevance, because (c) can produce more
contextual effect. So, assumption (c) not only possesses maximum relevance but the optimal relevance.
Ostension and inference are one and the same process, but from different points of view. It is the communicator who is involved in
ostension and audience who is involved in inference. From this point of view, the speaker’s task is to produce a stimulus, which
makes mutually manifest his informative intention, or, in Sperber and Wilson’s words, “behavior which makes manifest an intention
to make something manifest,” while for the hearer, communication is a process of inference. The hearer’s task is to infer from the
evidences presenting the speaker’s intention, or his communicative intention. That is to say, only with the intended set of assumptions,
i.e. the informative intention accepted by the hearer as true or probably true, the communicative intention can be realized. It is
obvious that inference acts as the core concept in RT and plays a leading role with the help of mutual ostension. Thus for successful
communication, it is necessary to make the informative intention mutually manifest between the communicator and the addressee.
In the process of English teaching, the teacher’s manifestness is the basic condition of utterance inferential process, making clear the
inferential direction and goal, and also what the teacher provides must be new information, can change the students’ cognitive
environment. Relevance is the only criteria for hearer to get the most proper comprehension. (Xu Shenghuan, 2002)
In order to raise teaching effect, some minutes are always left before the class is over for students to ask question about what they
just learned. And also before doing it, the teacher always reviews language points appearing in the passage, so learning about how
well students grasp is very common thing for normal class teaching. For students, given their command of language, it is inevitable
and common to meet some difficult points the teachers ignores to explain. Using euphemisms or euphemistic expressions in teaching
is very necessary, because it can show the teacher’s tolerance and will effectively protect students’ learning initiative and strengthen
students’ strong desire for knowledge.
Considering the example (2):
(2) T (teacher): Is there anything that I have not made it clear?
In the example (2), the teacher uses an interrogative sentence to ask for feedback. The teacher probably makes his informative
intention manifest to the students, and let the students understand “if you have some hard problems, please tell me”, which is the
communicator’s ostensive behavior. But this informative intention is not the communicator’s communicative intention which needs
the hearer to infer from the communicator’s ostensive information, to infer the communicator’s communicative intention.
During utterance communication, the speaker must produce some utterance, and show his communicative intention through this
utterance, also make the hearer understand his communicative intention, such is the ostension.
College students, as adults, know clearly that the main purpose for them learning in the college is to further study and train the ability
to learn with greatest initiative. Different from the senior middle school, they are eager to learn English in a light and happy class
atmosphere. The teacher’s using euphemisms or euphemistic expressions in college English teaching, can give play of positive
emotion in learning language. When the teacher uses euphemisms or euphemistic expression in teaching, the students will easily
understand that what the teacher says is relevant to English learning. Students will understand the teacher’s informative intention in
his cognitive context, and then the teacher’s communicative intention will be realized. Such will promote efficient and effective
English teaching. Both teachers and students can benefit from it, and the study on this aspect sure will make contribution to realizing
quality education. So, the analysis on euphemisms or euphemistic expressions used in college English teaching from the perspective
of principles of relevance and the ostensive-inferential model will advance the explanatory power of relevance theory.
VI Conclusion
Euphemisms or euphemistic expressions as a linguistic phenomenon do exist in every language and appear inevitably in everyday
communication. However, euphemism has been neglected in language teaching for a long time because it is a common occurrence
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and even some people consider it as the business of linguists. In fact, euphemism does have inspiration for language teaching and
learning.
Language teaching is one joint action. Teachers and students are two parties in language learning and teaching. The interaction
between them does exist and has a great influence on the teaching result. Actually, the teacher and students communicate with each
other in the whole teaching and learning process so as to get the specific communicative effect. College English teachers, by
introducing euphemistic rhetoric, with the help of raising students’ understanding ability, aim to build a light class atmosphere then
further raise students’ communicative ability. Euphemism is rather a good choice for teachers to apply in the class to achieve certain
communicative goal, for which is an attempt to modify an unpleasant thought by replacing the exact words or expressions with mild
and polite words or phrases. A teacher’s behavior of applying euphemisms in the teaching process can provide a relaxing and
comfortable environment for the students in the classroom.
Affective factors are generally assumed to influence second language acquisition. Affective factors are those that deal with the
emotional reactions and motivations of the learners. Euphemisms or euphemistic expressions applied into teaching, is closely related
to the consideration of affective factors.
Language is always varying constantly. Based on cognitive science, relevance theory has the capability of interpreting the generation
process of English euphemisms with its efficient and effective ostensive-inferential model. In a word, relevance theory accounts for
the mechanisms of the choice of utterance style, and because of its strong theoretical explanatory power. However, it has also left
some problems unsolved. Sperber & Wilson considered relevance of utterance a necessity, and the result of utterance comprehension
is chosen and determined based on variable context by cognitive subject. But relevance theory falls short of the adequacy in
describing the detailed regularity of the necessity and possibility. But the great influence of affective factors on college students could
not be denied. Such is also the direction for English teachers to make prompt efforts.
It is also a pity, the collection of materials comes from teaching practice, and the collecting scope is confined to the students under
the author’s teaching. The further study on affective factors towards the motivation of using euphemisms is expected to perform. The
author has great hope that this thesis can attract worthier and profound studies in the future.
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