Aspectos pragmáticos y discursivos de los usos eufemísticos en la comunicación pública

Abstract

Euphemism is a semantic phenomenon related to the transfer of meaning. It therefore implies a different meaning of the lexical units that are materialized in a given context. Euphemistic uses and substitutes can therefore be conceived as processes of substitution which are associated with an identical reference, and euphemism as a pragmatic and discourse phenomenon, connected to the pragmatic strategy of attenuation, as well as to other communicative goals such as occultation, the masking or blurring of a particularly unpleasant reality. Critical Discourse Analysis allows us to analyse the semantic implications of euphemism and its use as a pragmatic strategy in public communication in order to explore possible applications in the fi elds of lexicography, or more precisely, computational lexicography, and of language policy and planning (style books, good practice handbooks etc.).