Шпаргалки по лексикологии на английском языке (4 часть)

Euphemism, as is known, is a word or phrase used to replace an unpleasant word or expression by a conventionally more acceptable one, for example, the word 'to die' has bred the following euphemisms: to pass away, to expire, to be no more, to depart, to join the majority, to be gone, and the more facetious ones: to kick the bucket, to give up the ghost. So euphemisms are synonyms which aim at producing a deliberately mild effect. Euphemism is sometimes figuratively called "a whitewashing device"

. The linguistic peculiarity of euphemism lies in the fact that every euphemism must call up a definite synonym in the mind of the reader or listener. Euphemisms may be divided into several groups according to their spheres of application. The most recognized are the following: 1. religious, 2. moral, 3. medical and 4. parliamentary. The life of euphemisms is short. They very soon become closely associated with the referent (the object

named) and give way to a newly coined word or com English Dialects Dialect – social or local variety of a language. Dialect doesn’t have literature in it; variant has. English dialects: 1 – Northern; 2 – Midland; 3 – Eastern; 4 – Western; 5 – Southern. Features: conservatism; variability; redundancy; a lot of borrowed levels.

Several types of dialects: 1 – traditional (Northern; Midland; Eastern) - usage of “ain’t” for “isn’t”, “haven’t” - usage of “thee”, “thou”, “tha” - special plurals with -n: cow – kine - dropping -s in 3rd person sg or redundant auxiliaries: “she do”, “he go” - usage of “me” instead of “myself” - special lexis 2 – modern dialects (central, around London) - double negation “we don’t want nothing” - ending -s for all persons - “ain’t” for “isn’t”,

“aren’t” - non-standard past tenses of irregular verbs: “I see”=”I saw”; “I do”=”I did” - usage of “never” with negative meaning as past tense maker: “I never went”= “I didn’t go” - usage of adj. instead of adv.: “He came really quick” - no plural forms of measure of quantity, distance: “2 pound”bination of words, which, being the sign of a sign, throws another veil over an unpleasant or indelicate concept.