Euphemism and political discourse in the British regional press

Politicians resort to euphemism as a “safe” way to deal with unpleasant subjects and criticize their opponents without giving a negative impression to their audiences. In this regard, it is my purpose to gain an insight into the way euphemism is used by politicians from Norfolk and Suffolk both at w...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Crespo Fernández, Eliecer
Format: article
Publication Date:2014
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha
Repository:RUIdeRA. Repositorio Institucional de la UCLM
OAI Identifier:oai:ruidera.uclm.es:10578/42397
Online Access:http://www.phil.muni.cz/wkaa/home/publikace/bse-plone-verze
https://hdl.handle.net/10578/42397
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Euphemism
Face-saving strategies
PC language
Politeness
Political discourse
Quasi-dysphemism
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oai_identifier_str oai:ruidera.uclm.es:10578/42397
network_acronym_str ES
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repository_id_str
spelling Euphemism and political discourse in the British regional pressCrespo Fernández, EliecerEuphemismFace-saving strategiesPC languagePolitenessPolitical discourseQuasi-dysphemismPoliticians resort to euphemism as a “safe” way to deal with unpleasant subjects and criticize their opponents without giving a negative impression to their audiences. In this regard, it is my purpose to gain an insight into the way euphemism is used by politicians from Norfolk and Suffolk both at word and sentence level using a sample of the regional newspaper Eastern Daily Press, published in Norwich (UK). To this end, I will rely on the frameworks of critical-political discourse analysis (Van Dijk 1993, 1997; Wilson 2001), pragmatic theory, particularly politeness and facework (Brown and Levinson 1987), and Cognitive Metaphor Theory (Lakoff 1993). The results obtained reveal that euphemismplays an important role in the “self-promotion” of regional politicians, who employ euphemism – mostly by understatement, litotes and underspecification – for a variety of purposes, namely sensitivity to audience concerns, avoidance of expressions that can be perceived to marginalize socially disadvantaged groups, polite criticism and mitigation – even concealment – of unsettling topics.Universitas Masarykiana Brunensis202520252014info:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://www.phil.muni.cz/wkaa/home/publikace/bse-plone-verzehttps://hdl.handle.net/10578/42397reponame:RUIdeRA. Repositorio Institucional de la UCLMinstname:Universidad de Castilla-La ManchaInglésinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:ruidera.uclm.es:10578/423972026-05-27T07:36:41Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Euphemism and political discourse in the British regional press
title Euphemism and political discourse in the British regional press
spellingShingle Euphemism and political discourse in the British regional press
Crespo Fernández, Eliecer
Euphemism
Face-saving strategies
PC language
Politeness
Political discourse
Quasi-dysphemism
title_short Euphemism and political discourse in the British regional press
title_full Euphemism and political discourse in the British regional press
title_fullStr Euphemism and political discourse in the British regional press
title_full_unstemmed Euphemism and political discourse in the British regional press
title_sort Euphemism and political discourse in the British regional press
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Crespo Fernández, Eliecer
author Crespo Fernández, Eliecer
author_facet Crespo Fernández, Eliecer
author_role author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Euphemism
Face-saving strategies
PC language
Politeness
Political discourse
Quasi-dysphemism
topic Euphemism
Face-saving strategies
PC language
Politeness
Political discourse
Quasi-dysphemism
description Politicians resort to euphemism as a “safe” way to deal with unpleasant subjects and criticize their opponents without giving a negative impression to their audiences. In this regard, it is my purpose to gain an insight into the way euphemism is used by politicians from Norfolk and Suffolk both at word and sentence level using a sample of the regional newspaper Eastern Daily Press, published in Norwich (UK). To this end, I will rely on the frameworks of critical-political discourse analysis (Van Dijk 1993, 1997; Wilson 2001), pragmatic theory, particularly politeness and facework (Brown and Levinson 1987), and Cognitive Metaphor Theory (Lakoff 1993). The results obtained reveal that euphemismplays an important role in the “self-promotion” of regional politicians, who employ euphemism – mostly by understatement, litotes and underspecification – for a variety of purposes, namely sensitivity to audience concerns, avoidance of expressions that can be perceived to marginalize socially disadvantaged groups, polite criticism and mitigation – even concealment – of unsettling topics.
publishDate 2014
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2014
2025
2025
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
format article
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://www.phil.muni.cz/wkaa/home/publikace/bse-plone-verze
https://hdl.handle.net/10578/42397
url http://www.phil.muni.cz/wkaa/home/publikace/bse-plone-verze
https://hdl.handle.net/10578/42397
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Universitas Masarykiana Brunensis
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Universitas Masarykiana Brunensis
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:RUIdeRA. Repositorio Institucional de la UCLM
instname:Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha
instname_str Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha
reponame_str RUIdeRA. Repositorio Institucional de la UCLM
collection RUIdeRA. Repositorio Institucional de la UCLM
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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