Abstract:With the development of world economy, English has become an indispensable language tool in international communication. Euphemism, one of the most essential rhetorical devices, is used in business negotiation. However, business negotiations fail frequently because of businesspersons’ inappropriate application of euphemism. Thus, it is important for a systematic study of the applications of euphemism in business negotiation.

According to Verschueren, using language is a continuous making of linguistic choices. These linguistic choices are generated in the correlation of mental world, social world and the utters may make choices at various levels in order to satisfy their communicative needs. And business negotiation is also a process of choosing in language, during which, many linguistic skills or methods are quite widely used, euphemism, in particular. The thesis mainly discusses how euphemisms is used to adapting into the mental world, the social world and physical world of the negotiators, and finds out that the use of English euphemism is a dynamic choice-making adapted to the mental world, social world and physical world of business negotiators. 

Key words: euphemistic; adaptation theory; mental world; social world; physical world

Table of Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Literature review-1

1.2 The introduction of adaptation theory-2

1.3 The definition of euphemistic expressions-2

1.4 The formation of euphemistic expressions and its manifestation-3

1.4.1 Phonetic device-3

1.4.2 Vocabulary device-4

1.4.3 Grammatical device-5

1.4.4 Pragmatics device-5

2. Euphemistic Strategies in Business Negotiations-7

2.1 Empathic strategies-7

2.2 Syntactic strategies-7

2.2.1 Tone-weakening-7

2.2.2 Tone-negating-8

2.2.3 Subjunctive-8

2.2.4 Negative tone weakening-8

2.2.5 Positive tone weakening-8

2.3 Shirking strategies-8

3. An Adaptive Analysis of Euphemism in International Business Negotiation-10

3.1 Euphemism as adaptation to mental world-10

3.1.1 Being polite-10

3.1.2 Avoding deadlock-11

3.2 Euphemism as adaptation to social world-11

3.2.1 Adaptation to social status-11

3.2.2 Adaptation to institutional power-13

3.3 Euphemism as adaptation to physical world-13

4. Conclusion-15

References-16

Acknowledgements-17