Abstract: Euphemism plays an important role in people’s social communication and exists in almost every culture and society. In order to help the language learner to understand euphemism better, this thesis mainly explores the differences of pragmatic function between English and Chinese euphemism. The comparative analysis of pragmatic functions between English and Chinese euphemism reflect in two aspects: cosmetic function and evasive function. Cosmetic function mainly includes the conceal of the social problem and political situation. And the evasive function is embodied in contraindication of death, circumbendibus of physiological characteristics, euphemism of disease and the poverty. It is hoped that through the analysis of this paper, people could use euphemism effectively in the daily communication.
Key words ：pragmatic function；comparative analysis；euphemism
摘 要: 委婉语存在于人们的社交生活中，几乎所有的文化和社会中都有委婉语。为了更好地帮助英语学习者了解委婉语，本文主要从以下方面来分析：英汉委婉语的语用功能对比主要体现在掩饰功能和避讳功能等方面。掩饰功能包括社会问题的掩饰和在战争和政治场合的掩饰；避讳功能则体现在对死亡现象的禁忌，盥洗及与生理特性相关的委婉表达，疾病及生理缺陷的委婉现象和贫困及失业的委婉说法等方面。希望通过本文的分析使人们在交际中更加有效地使用委婉语。
关键字: 语用功能；对比分析；委婉语
