A sociolinguistic view of euphemism in Arabic and English: a comparative analysis

In this paper, the researcher aims to elaborate the nature of euphemisms through carrying out an analysis of euphemisms in both Arabic and English. The present contrastive study is geared mainly towards probing into the euphemistic language that Arabic language speakers and English language speakers resort to when certain tabooed topics and concepts are brought to the fore. The analysis was done in the light of Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory (1978, 1987). The speakers in all languages try to avoid the taboo expressions which is one of the main reasons behind the adoption of euphemism. Therefore, it has been a topic of interest that attracts the attention of many researchers. The study concluded that euphemism a universal phenomenon in all natural languages. In addition, is not only a lingual phenomenon, but also a social, a cultural, and a psychological phenomenon existing in human society and that the social and cultural factors are very influential in expressing euphemism. The study has also concluded that the development of euphemism has a strong relationship with the development of taboo words at the first place. Actually, the existence of taboo words or taboo ideas stimulates the creation of euphemisms. The study concluded that despite the fact that Arabic and English are not linguistically, geographically and culturally related, however certain similarities and differences between the two languages in terms of the use of euphemism were found. These similarities and differences can be mainly attributed to cultural and religious beliefs and values. Euphemism in Arabic and English is mainly used as a communicative and rhetorical means for the same goal and effect since it is used to facilitate social interaction through replacing taboo words and various socially unacceptable topics with more acceptable and more pleasant ones, or that it is used in the attempt to avoid either fearful, offensive or unpleasant subjects. Moreover, the implementing of euphemism in Arabic and English is almost similar in subjects such as death. However, both languages differ as regards the emphasis, details and range of the complex metaphor. On the other hand, the use of euphemisms varies between English and Arabic in the case of copulate or sexual intercourse as the Arabic sex euphemisms tend to be more decent and covert than English ones. Arabic euphemisms differ from English euphemisms in another aspect which is the use of euphemizers. As for the adoption to euphemisms and to observance of the politeness principle and the face theory, the study concluded that the basic difference between the two languages is that the degree of politeness in euphemisms in Arabic is higher than in English. As for the taboo topics and euphemisms categories in Arabic and English, the study concluded that there is a similar set of common areas that are euphemized or censored in both languages. However, due to the cultural, religious and social differences between the two languages and due to the non-universality of some Arabic language taboos many other euphemisms’ categories can be found in Arabic but not in English language.