POLITICAL COMMUNICATION, POLITICAL LANGUAGE, POLITICAL EUPHEMISMS IN MODERN LINGUISTICS (ON THE MATERIAL OF ANGLO-AMERICAN PRESS)

Abstract

The main task of this article is to study the usage of political euphemisms in modern Anglo-American political communication. A scientific article deals with the description of such notions as “political communication”, “political language” in modern linguistics, besides, it studies political euphemisms as a means of brightening the truth. A political euphemism is an effective tool for political leaders to control the quantity and quality of information transmission, with which some disgraceful behaviors or motivations are generally glorified or hidden, hence avoiding public accusal. So political euphemisms play the role of hiding the truth and legalizing wrong behaviors, they influence people’s sense of right and wrong as well as their understanding of the objective world, and, in such a way succeeding in persuading them.

So euphemisms are a common phenomenon in a human language use that has nowadays attracted much attention home and abroad. Cognitively speaking, euphemisms are used to name things without calling up a mental picture of them and are meant to strike at a person’s imagination. They do not form complete pictures in the mind, nor do they completely define an event or an object. Though euphemizing is now an accepted and established practice, it has acquired a vague connotation in light of its tendency to deliberately disguise actual meanings of words and expressions in political communication.

A euphemism as a linguistic phenomenon provides one more proof that any language is not only the reflection of the objective world but also a process of social construction.