【作者】 华鸿燕；

【导师】 徐盛桓；

【作者基本信息】 河南大学 ， 外国语言学及应用语言学， 2012， 硕士

【摘要】 委婉语是一种普遍存在的语言现象,它意指用一种温和的表达方式来代替那种不够“好听”的表达方式。自产生之日起,它就担负着“润滑”交际的重任。在日常社会交际活动中,委婉语不仅已经成为人们表达思想情感的重要交际手段之一,而在语言交际中更是协调人际关系的一个重要手段。它在和谐社会构建中起着十分重要的作用早期学者对委婉语大多从定义、分类及美学效果等方面进行描写性或规定性的研究。当代语言学派林立,众多学者,尤其是语义学家、语用学家、认知语言学家等,借用相应的理论对委婉语提出了不同的解释方案,具有很强的解释力和创新性,也为以后委婉语的研究留下宝贵的财富。但是他们很少触及委婉语的生成和理解,所搜集的语料也是关于一些很老套的话题,例如被多次讨论的关于死亡,疾病,性,身体部位等,不具有鲜明的时代特色。本文在总结国内众多学者对委婉语研究的诸多观点基础之上,试图以新时期出现的委婉语为起点,在语言研究的心智哲学理论框架内阐释委婉语为什么可能。心智哲学是21世纪的第一哲学,是研究身心关系的哲学。与语言哲学不同,心智哲学不再将语言活动看作哲学直接面对的研究对象,而是把语言活动看作心智活动的反映,心智活动才是心智哲学研究的对象；语言是观察心智的“窗口”,通过这一窗口可以帮助我们观察人类心智如何运作。心智哲学与语言研究在“语言”上有交汇点,因此我们可以汲取心智哲学中可以用于语言研究的积极成果,使语言研究呈现出一种新的面貌。徐盛桓在心智哲学和语言研究的探索中提出语言运用的三个假设：(1)语言最基本的性质是：语言是基于心智的。(2)感觉知觉信息的表达是语言运用的基础。(3)语言表征的是心理表征。本文正是基于这三个假设,从心智哲学的视角出发,在“委婉语研究的心智哲学分析框架”下对委婉语生成和理解过程中涉及到的心智活动进行描述,进而从心智层面,主要借助意向性、心-物随附性、感受质三个概念,揭示委婉语得以应用的原因。本研究大致从两部分展开：生成过程和理解过程。生成过程又分为关指过程和选择过程。整个过程如下：第一、意向性对语言运用有极其重要的导向作用,毫无疑问对委婉语也是如此。它是说话者头脑里一系列心智活动的起点,决定了说话人的意向态度(例如,在运用委婉语时是避讳)和意向内容(需要避讳的物理事件)。否则,我们将无法进行涉世的活动,更不用说委婉地交际了。第二、众所周知,对于同一个“真实词语”,一般来说可能存在一个以上的委婉语来替代它,但是说话者通常只选择一个替代词来达到委婉的目的。那么,这个选择过程是如何实现的?具体来说,哪种变量在说话者选择替代词的过程中起着关键性的作用?这一答案与心-物随附性有很大的关系。心-物随附性是人们头脑里的一项重要的心智过程。一言以概之：“真实词语”的心理属性决定了说话者选择某一个委婉语来实现交际目的；该心理属性随附于物理属性但又受说话者自由意志的影响,从而在说话者头脑里涌现出一种具有委婉新质的表达,即委婉语。第三、听者是怎样理解这些“委婉词”的?从这样的词语里能获得什么样的感受意?这些问题的回答需要借助于感受质。感受质是心理状态的一种情形,其产生是基于心-物随附性这一心理过程。整个理解过程如下：委婉词的心理属性使得听话者产生某种感受意,引发某种积极肯定和向上的感觉。总之,意向性、随附性、感受质是本篇论文的理论基础。借助这些理论,我们能够在心智哲学的框架下对委婉语的产生和理解机制给出清晰的阐释。更多还原

【Abstract】 Euphemism, as a ubiquitous language phenomenon, is a softened, bland, or sometimes neutral expression used instead of one that might suggest something unpleasant. Ever since its appearance, it has been playing a very important role in "lubricating" communication. On social occasions, euphemism has become not only one of the important communicating ways for people to express their ideas and feelings, but also a very important means to harmonize the relationships between people in verbal communications, and therefore it plays a very important role in promoting the construction of a harmonious society.Early researches of euphemism, descriptive or prescriptive, have been restricted to the perspectives of its definition, classification and aesthetic effects. During recent decades, modern linguistic schools stand in great numbers, which lay a solid foundation for the explanatory turn of euphemism study. Modern linguistics, cognitive semantics and cognitive pragmatics in particular, probe into this old issue by proposing different linguistic approaches with which the interpretation process has been expounded. The studies are a large treasure for further studies; however, few of scholars in the studies set foot in disclosing the generation and interpretation mechanisms of euphemism. Even if there do exist, these cursory studies merely take as the object the only limited scope of euphemistic expressions such as euphemisms about sex, illness, death, which have been the object of over-repeated examination, thus making the study somewhat devoid of the characteristics of the present time. This being the case, the present study attempts to give a tentative account of why euphemism is possible from a new perspective, the perspective of philosophy of mind.Philosophy of mind, being recognized as the first philosophy in the21st century by the British philosopher and linguist John Searle, is the philosophical thinking concerning the relation of body and mind. Different from philosophy of language, philosophy of mind takes mental activities as its direct object of the study with language activities only viewed as the reflection of mental activities in the scope of its study. As we all know, language is the window into mind, through which we can observe how human’s mind works at large. This in turn makes it possible that philosophy of mind and the study of language have an overlapping, and thus the positive gains of the current study of euphemism from the point of view of philosophy of mind can be applied to linguistic research to make it take on a new look.The present study emerges from the three hypotheses of language against the background of philosophy of mind, which are put forward by the Chinese scholar Xu Shenghuan. The hypotheses are as follows:(1) The basic nature of language is its being mind-based.(2) Language use is based on what is perceived and felt.(3) Language representation is the reflection of mental representation.To be more specific, the thesis tries to describe the mental processes of the generation and interpretation of euphemism in an Analytical Framework of Euphemism Based on the Philosophy of Mind, and furthermore it reveals how the concepts of intentionality, supervenience, and qualia help to explain the mental causes for which euphemism is produced and interpreted.The research, which finally comes down into a mechanism about euphemism, is largely divided into two parts:generation process and interpretation process, with the former again being divided into two, the directing (that is, focusing on) process and the selecting process.The whole mechanism is as such:First, adopting the appropriate intentionality is of prior importance for language use, which undoubtedly holds true for the use of euphemism. It is the initial step of the producer, determining the producer’s choice of the potential content and attitude when he speaks; that is, to be evading as to what and how he would like to express, this time to speak in a euphemistical way. Otherwise, it is impossible for us to be involved in the world, let alone speak euphemistically.Second, as we all know, there usually exists more than one euphemism for the same "true word", so the speaker has to choose the only one suitable to serve his or her purpose. How does the selecting process happen? To be specific, which variant is playing a decisive role in the speaker’s choice of a certain substitute? This is closely related to the psychological supervenience, an important mental process which is going on in our mind. And this process can be briefed into one sentence:it is the mental property, which is somewhat dependent on the physical property of the real object described on the one hand and somewhat out of the speaker’s free will of how to describe it appropriately on the other.that decides his or her choice of a certain substitute which is of euphemistic novelty.Third, how does the hearer interpret the "gilded words"? What qualia-sense does the hearer sense from the euphemistic word or phrases? To answer these questions, we have to resort to qualia, an instance of mental property. Its coming into being is also due to the mental process of supervenience. This interpreting process is condensed as follows:the qualia-sense of euphemism brought upon the hearer is decided by the mental property of the "gilded word" which undoubtedly arouses a kind of positive and uplifting meaning in the hearer.All in all, intentionality, supervenience, and qualia underlie the mechanism proposed in this thesis. By means of the three concepts, we give a clear explanation of the generation and the interpretation of euphemism from the perspective of philosophy of mind.更多还原