Concealing a Harsh

Reality
A Study of Euphemisms in American Political
Discourse

Anastasia Basele

Department of English

Bachelor Degree Project

English Linguistics

Autumn 2011

Supervisor: Nils-Lennart Johannesson

Concealing a Harsh Reality
A Study of Euphemisms in American Political Discourse
Anastasia Basele

Abstract
To avoid causing offence is an ability that is highly valued when dealing with any social
situation, and euphemisms are words used just for this particular purpose. Within
politics, official euphemisms are used to allow discourse participants to either remain
politically correct or to avoid a level of directness that may reflect negatively on the
party agenda. This paper investigates political euphemisms and the motivation behind
their use in American political discourse by looking at White House press briefings
from between the years of 1994 and 1998. The euphemisms used are extracted from the
Corpus of Professional American English and also cross-referenced in the Corpus of
Contemporary American English so as to see if they are used as frequently in general
discourse as they are in political discourse. The main theoretical framework is centered
on semiotics and the notion of words forming the basis for our perception of reality.
Despite some limitations to the study, the results presented in this paper show that the
frequency of use in political and general discourse vary depending on if the original
uses of the words referred to politics or not, i.e. politically related words were mainly
found in political discourse and vice versa. Also, the results showed that the main
motivation behind the use of the euphemisms seemed to be to conceal the harshness of
reality in order to mislead the public and not for the sake of political correctness.

Keywords

Euphemism, Political Discourse, American English, Corpus, COCA, CSPAE, White

House, Press Briefings, Semiotics
Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................... 1

1.1 Euphemisms ................................................................................... 1

1.1.1 Background ..................................................................................... 1

1.1.2 Conventional or official ..................................................................... 2

1.2 Political discourse ............................................................................ 2

1.2.1 What is discourse? ........................................................................... 2

1.2.2 Political discourse ............................................................................. 2

2. Theoretical Framework .................................................................... 3

2.1 Reality as a construct of language...................................................... 3

2.1.1 Semiotics ........................................................................................ 3

2.1.2 Reality and euphemisms ................................................................... 4

2.2 The purpose of euphemisms in political discourse ................................ 4

2.3 Hypothesis ...................................................................................... 5

3. Material and method ....................................................................... 6

3.1 Corpus data .................................................................................... 6

3.1.1 CSPAE ............................................................................................ 6

3.1.2 COCA.............................................................................................. 6

3.2 Euphemisms ................................................................................... 7

4. Results .......................................................................................... 7

4.1 CSPAE findings ................................................................................ 7

4.2 COCA findings ................................................................................ 10

5. Discussion ..................................................................................... 11

5.1 Comparing the findings.................................................................... 11

5.2 Reality and the use of political euphemisms ....................................... 12

5.3 Limitations to the study ................................................................... 13

6. Conclusion .................................................................................... 14
 6.1 Is there a difference in the use of the identified political euphemisms
when comparing general American discourse to American political discourse?
.......................................................................................................... 14

6.2 What is the main motivation behind the use of the euphemisms in
American political discourse? ................................................................. 15

References ........................................................................................ 16

Primary sources ................................................................................... 16

Secondary sources ............................................................................... 16

Appendix A ....................................................................................... 18

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1. Introduction

A euphemism is a language expression used to replace inappropriate wordings with more

palatable phrases, and they are an inherent part of our everyday language use. They allow
us to avoid causing offence in delicate, or uncomfortable, social situations and are
therefore often found in political discourse. As was remarked by George Orwell,
“political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer
cloudy vagueness” (Orwell, 1946); in other words, users of political discourse (e.g.
politicians, political commentators etc.) are highly skilled at concealing the more brutal
aspects of reality through the use of euphemisms. Instead of talking about civilian
casualties, there are mentions of collateral damage (New York Times, 2010). Illegal
aliens or illegal immigrants become undocumented workers (Los Angeles Times, 2010),
and increase in taxes is turned into revenue enhancements (New York Times, 1981).
These, and many other euphemisms, have become part of the standard political jargon
used within American political discourse, and tie in with Daniel Chandler’s (2007)
theoretical notion of reality being the product of the language we use to present it.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the use and purpose of political euphemisms in
American political discourse. The paper will look at the ten most frequently used
euphemisms found in transcripts from White House press briefings from the years 1994
to 1998 in the Corpus of Spoken Professional American English (CSPAE), and establish
their purpose in terms of the theoretical framework presented in section 2 of this paper.
The use of these euphemisms within American political discourse will also be compared
to that of their use in general American discourse through a cross-reference with the
Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA).

1.1 Euphemisms
1.1.1 Background
The notion of taboo words has been present in human society for as long as words have
been used as a means of communication (Terwilliger, 1968:314), and has led to the
development of replacement phrases that retain the meaning of the word without it
actually having to be uttered. What began as a belief in word magic — that the words we
use carry the attributes of their meanings — has since then developed through the ages
into the intricate system of synonyms and metaphors based on euphemistic properties we

1
are accustomed to dealing with today (Noble, 1982:1). Nevertheless, despite its magical
origin, the use of euphemisms today is more socially motivated than superstitiously
inclined, as their main purpose has turned into a means by which to avoid causing offense
and strategically conceal the harshness of reality (Kany, 1960:V).

1.1.2 Conventional or official

In terms of social motivation, Grillo (2005) divides the use of euphemisms into two
separate categories: conventional euphemisms and official ones. Those euphemisms used
in order to avoid causing offense as a response to social standards — such as using the
term deceased instead of dead when discussing someone who has recently passed away
— fall under the category of conventional euphemisms (Grillo, 2005:96). Those used
mainly for the purpose of saving face are the official ones. These are euphemisms used,
partly in order to be able to remain politically correct, but also so as to confound the
meaning of what is presented, and strategically avoid a level of directness that could lead
to a negative representation of the self (Grillo, 2005:88). These official euphemism can
also be referred to as doublespeak (Fox, 2000:47) and will be the main focus of this paper.

1.2 Political discourse

1.2.1 What is discourse?
Discourse is most often defined as any type of written or spoken discussion (CDO, 2011).
However, it is important to note that in order for discussion to be counted as ‘proper’
discourse it has to be functional and have a specific purpose.

The actual study of discourse is mainly focused on analyzing communication beyond the
sentence structure. Discourse analysts look at discourse in terms of context and attempt
to find patterns in the language. They are also involved with investigating the influence
of interpersonal relationships between discourse participants on the communicative
process, and how discourse influences the way in which the world is perceived (Paltridge,
2006:2).

1.2.2 Political discourse

The function of language within politics is to communicate opinions on what are
considered to be the shared perceptions of various social groups (Chilton, 2004:5).

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Political discourse, along with most other discourse genres, can therefore only be fully
comprehended when there exists an explicit understanding of the social context where it
is produced (van Dijk, 2002:225,234). This means that it is important to recognize that it
is heavily influenced by who the discourse participants are, when the discourse is
produced, and for what purpose the communicative process takes place.

As Eriksson (2009) draws from, then not yet published, Ädel (2010) in a previous
research paper, political discourse could be defined in either a broad or a narrow sense.
The broader being in terms of any form of communication, between any discourse
participants, on the topic of politics in any context. The narrower would instead be
focused on a political context, i.e. communication between discourse participants
involved in an active political process (e.g. government officials, political journalists
etc.), discussing matters regarding politics for the purpose of influencing the political
process.

This essay, as its data mainly consists of transcripts from White House press briefings,
will take both definitions into account due to both the topic and context of the texts being
political.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1 Reality as a construct of language

2.1.1 Semiotics
Semiotics is a field that is closely related to linguistics, and one focus of study lies on
what role signs have in the construction of reality. This is because, to semioticians, signs
are viewed as a “representat[ation of] other things […] [and reality itself] always involves
representation” (Chandler 2007:60). Language is one of the most complex sign systems
available, as it does not only consist of concrete lexical words that refer to the physical
world, but there are also abstract lexical words that refer to concepts and ideas, and
function words that have little, or no lexical meaning, but are there to make the language
coherent.

In the book Semiotics: The Basics, Chandler notes that “language reflects the structure of
an external reality” (2007:62), meaning that the way in which reality is perceived, is partly
determined by the language used to describe it. This in turn means that when we produce

3
language, the specific words used have the ability to present reality in either a harsher or
a brighter light.

2.1.2 Reality and euphemisms

In terms of official euphemisms, their inherent purpose is to affect the way in which
reality is perceived. This is because they are one of the linguistic tools that make it
possible to construct an alternative, less harmful, view of the world without having to
reshape the physical reality itself. This can be viewed as both positive and negative. In
the positive sense, using official euphemisms means that there exists an explicit
awareness of the nature of the original term and its negative connotation. This enables the
discourse participants to communicate in a way that allows for the participants to express
their thoughts whilst remaining politically correct, acknowledging that they are concerned
about the issue but still care about the way in which the other participants perceive them
(Robinson, 2011), i.e. they value their input and opinion. Looking at this from a negative
perspective instead, political correctness not only enables the participants to acknowledge
each other’s importance, but also makes it possible to ‘spin’ the truth and open up for
increased possibilities of deception. An example of this would be when the euphemism
collateral damage replaces civilian casualties (which in a sense also is a euphemistic
expression for civilian deaths). In this situation the negative connotations of the original
term outweighs the importance of portraying an accurate account of what has taken place.
This means that the value of the other participants opinions can no longer be considered
significant (Robinson, 2011).

2.2 The purpose of euphemisms in political discourse

The underlying purpose behind using euphemisms in political discourse is described quite
well in this quote by Orwell:

“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like
the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of
the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal
for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties.”
(Orwell, 1946)

Despite the outdated examples and the overall age of this quote, it can still be considered
an accurate and valid description of why euphemisms are present in political discourse,

4
as they allow for a means to circumvent these potentially ‘brutal’ truths.

Within an active political process, political actors are also under a lot of pressure to keep
hold of the public’s favor. This means that they, when faced with an unfavorable situation,
most often choose to use language that will cause the least amount of harm to the party
image. Therefore, despite frequent, explicit objections to this being the case, politicians
and other active participants within the political scene, by employing publicists to control
the in- and output of information by the use of alternative phrasings, are indirectly
confirming that there is some merit to the proposed idea that there are advantages to a
strategic use of language in political situations (Chilton, 2004:8).

The use of euphemisms within political discourse can therefore be said to serve as a
barrier between the active discourse participants (politicians) and the general public, so
as to neutralize a potentially negative view of the political agenda.

2.3 Hypothesis
As presented thus far, official euphemisms are a linguistic phenomenon that makes it
possible to present reality in a more positive light, so as to either show respect for the
other discourse participants, or in order to keep information from them that could either
destroy a built up image of the self, or allow for intentional miscommunication. The
purpose of this study is to investigate the use, as well as the purpose behind the use, of
euphemisms in American political discourse.

Based on the theoretical framework, it is hypothesized that American Political discourse

contains a higher frequency of politically identified euphemisms compared to general
American discourse. Also, the investigation hopes to show that the main motivation
behind the use of these euphemisms is positive, meaning that they were used to show
respect for the opinions of the general public, and not in order to withhold information.

Based on these hypotheses, the main research questions to be discussed further on in this
essay are:

1. Is there a difference in the use of the identified political euphemisms when

comparing general American discourse to American political discourse?

2. What is the main motivation behind the use of the euphemisms in American
political discourse?

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3. Material and method

3.1 Corpus data

As mentioned in section 1, the purpose of this essay is to investigate the use of
euphemisms in American political discourse in terms of the established theoretical
framework. The investigation will make use of corpus data, as this makes it possible to
observe both the frequency and context of the use of the euphemisms, and also allows for
partial insight into the main motivation behind the use of the euphemisms. This means
that the research method will be both quantitative and qualitative. Also, to put the
influence of context into perspective, the euphemisms found in CSPAE will also be cross-
referenced with COCA. This is so as to deduce whether they are mainly used within
political discourse, or whether they are found just as frequently in general American
English use as well.

3.1.1 CSPAE
CSPAE is a corpus of professional American English, which is divided into two sub-
corpora. The first focuses on transcripts of academic discussions, whereas the other
consists of transcribed White House press briefings from the years 1994 to 1998 during
the presidency of Bill Clinton. Due to the nature of this paper, only the second sub-corpora
be taken into consideration. It contains 954,443 separate word tokens, and 16,515
individual word types (Barlow, 24/11/11). The press briefings are all similarly structured
and most of them begin with an introductory opening statement dealing with recent White
House activities, and then go on to a question and answer section. They then finish off
with a short closing statement.

3.1.2 COCA
COCA is a corpus of the general use of American English from the year 1990 to the
present. The corpus contains both spoken and written discourse divided into five
categories (spoken, magazine, fiction, newspaper and academic) and consists of
414,771,808 separate word tokens and 2,805,451 individual word types (Davies,
24/11/11). This means that the corpus is able to give a general approximation of how
other types of discourse, also including political discourse to a certain extent, make use
of the same euphemisms, or if they make use of them at all. In this particular study, as the
main data taken from CSPAE was produced during the years between 1994 and 1998, the

6
cross-reference data taken from COCA will therefore also be extracted from within this
time period.

3.2 Euphemisms
So as to limit the number of euphemisms used in this study — and in order to make sure
that the terms picked out are indeed real euphemisms and not merely neutral synonyms
— twenty-nine words explicitly relating to the world of politics (see Appendix A) were
taken from the two books: Euphemisms: Over 3,000 ways to avoid being rude or giving
offence (Ayto, 1993) and Speak Softly: Euphemisms and such (Noble, 1982). These books
both contain glossaries where the specific nature of the euphemisms were described and
only those euphemisms that fell under the category of politics, government or war were
chosen. The euphemisms were also looked up in the Cambridge Online Dictionary
(CDO), so as to provide a better picture of how the words are used in a non-euphemistic
setting.

When searching for the terms in CSPAE, all data was treated as lowercase so as to make
sure that all instances of the individual words were accounted for. Also, the nature of
some of the euphemisms, such as sanction or dialogue, allow for variation in their ending
morphemes (e.g. -s, -ed etc.). This was dealt with by replacing the endings with an asterisk
(*). This allows for all variants of the words to be accounted for.

4. Results

Out of the twenty-nine euphemisms that were picked out from Noble (1982) and Ayto
(1993), twenty-one of them were found in CSPAE, and the main data used for this essay
will consist of the top ten most frequently used euphemisms among these twenty-one
words (see Table 1).

As COCA is a much larger corpus than CSPAE (102,954,452 words between 1994 and
1998 compared to 954,443), the frequency per 1 million words column was added to the
tables so as to better represent the results.

Table 1. Displaying the frequency of the instances where the twenty-one terms were used as
euphemisms in CSPAE, including the frequency per 1 million words for the top ten euphemisms.
The asterisk (*) refers to all variants of the word having been taken into account.

7
 Number Euphemism Frequency Freq. per 1 million w.
1 dialogue* 219 229
2 intelligence 66 69
3 alternative* 40 42
4 capabilit* 37 38
5 abuse* 25 26
6 device* 24 25
7 friendly 19 20
8 conventional 18 19
9 surplus* 16 17
10 classified 14 15
11 candid 13
12 cordial 10
13 relocat* 10
14 activist* 7
15 ceiling* 6
16 spin 4
17 terminate* 4
18 asset 3
19 collateral damage 2
20 covert 1
21 PTSD/combat fatigue 1

4.1 CSPAE findings

The most frequently appearing euphemism found when searching through CSPAE was
dialogue* which originally refers to conversations between fictional characters (CDO,
24/11/11). This is a euphemism for discussion (Noble, 1982:59) that makes it possible to
play down the aggressive tone of the original term. All instances of the euphemism being
used in the transcript support this claim by referring to discussions between politically
involved parties that would either take place or already had taken place. An example of
this would be the two instances of the use of the phrase authoritative dialogue which
shows up in the transcripts from 1997 in relation to the discussions between the United
States and Iran concerning terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (White House,
1997).

The second word in Table 1 is intelligence, a term that originally refers to the ability to
learn (CDO, 24/11/11) but can be used as a euphemistic replacement for the phrase secret
information. As a euphemism, the word is often used to refer to espionage outside of a

8
country’s borders (Ayto, 1993:311) despite the fact that it may just as well refer to
information on national issues as well. In terms of the findings in CSPAE, intelligence
was mainly used to refer to any information that could not explicitly be divulged to the
public.

The third euphemism, alternative*, it is not only a term which indicates that there exists
other options to choose from (CDO, 24/11/11), but that these ‘options’ can also be
classified as better than the original (Ayto 1993:297). The transcript findings support
this idea as they mainly refer to alternatives in the shape of improvements on current
policies or situations, such as helping “…kids see an alternative career” (White House,
1994).

The fourth most frequently used term in Table 1 is capabilit* which refers to the ability
to do something. This, much in the same way as device, is used as a cover-up term related
to weaponry where the often excluded collocates reveal the true nature of the term, for
instance nuclear capability (Ayto, 1993: 306). Most of the instances of the euphemism
found in the transcripts are also either combined with war related collocates such as
nuclear, terrorist or technical capability (White House, 1996-7) or referring to possible
military actions, “capability for re[i]nforcements” (White House, 1997).

The fifth most frequently used euphemism in this investigation is the term abuse*. In
this particular context it is a euphemism for violence or cruelty, and inconsideration
towards others (Noble, 1982:55) that acts as a more clinical alternative to the original
terms. However, the word may be used to refer other things, for example misuse, when
discussing things such as substance abuse. In the results extracted from CSPAE, the
term is mainly used as a replacement for violations or violence, as it is most often
collocated with human rights or domestic/spousal brutality (White House, 1994, 1996).

Device*, the sixth term, is a word for machinery that, when collocated with nuclear, as
in nuclear device, reveals its purpose as a euphemism for weaponry (Ayto, 1993:307).
The findings in CSPAE show that in a political context, there are uses of the term device
that refer to weaponry, such as nuclear or explosive device (White House, 1995-6), but
there are also uses of the word which simply refer to neutral machinery, as in medical
devices (White House, 1995, 1997).

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Friendly is the seventh most frequently used euphemism found in these transcripts. This
is a euphemism that is mainly used to either refer to a relationship where the parties
involved have nothing to fear from one another, or to play down the severity of one’s own
faulty actions (Ayto, 1993:298, 305-6). Looking at the findings in CSPAE, it appears that
this manner of use is also one preferred in political discourse, as the last form of use can
be seen in the example of friendly fire (White House, 1997), which is used to explain an
event in which someone has managed to kill someone on their own side (CDO, 24/11/11).

The eighth term seen in Table 1 is conventional, referring to weapons that are not of a
nuclear persuasion (Ayto, 1993:308). This is due to the original meaning of the word
being something that is considered traditional (CDO, 24/11/11). In the White House press
briefings, the euphemism either directly referred to knowledge acquired from
conventional weaponry, non-nuclear devices, or organizations that dealt with them.

Term number nine in Table 1 is surplus*, a euphemism used to replace the word profit
because of its dirtied association to economic self-interest (Noble, 1982:81). The term is
used in the transcripts to refer to an excess of economic funds in terms of either a budget
or trade surplus (White House, 1995-7).

The tenth, and final, most frequently used euphemism that will be discussed in this paper
is classified. This, much like intelligence, also refers to secrets but in a different sense.
Classifying is not so much associated with the process of gathering information, but deals
more with actual restriction of the flow of information (Ayto, 1993:294). Only those
permitted by a higher institution may make use of classified information. In the press
briefings, the term classified is used mainly to exclude the press from information they
are deemed unauthorized to take part of, such as when the press secretary, Mike McCurry,
was asked to reveal information concerning a possible Chinese plot.

“... the intelligence community has acknowledged there's classified and sensitive information
that may or may not pertain to issues like these, and I [McCurry] think it's important that we
uphold the law and not violate anything that has to do with the nation's national security...”
(White House, 1997)

4.2 COCA findings

As seen in Table 2, all of the cross-referenced euphemisms from CSPAE were found in
COCA, though some occured more frequently than others. This illustrates that these
euphemisms are not only part of American political discourse, but can also be found in

10
other, more general types of discourse as well. However, despite them being present in
both corpora, the general areas of use for these euphemisms differ. This is related to their
meanings varying depending on whether the context is general or political.

Table 2. Displaying the frequency of the 10 euphemisms cross-referenced in COCA, including the
frequency per 1 million words. Due to the size of COCA, all instances of the terms found in the
corpus were included and not merely when they were used as euphemisms. The asterisk (*) refers
to all variants of the word having been taken into account.

Freq. per 1
Euphemism Frequency
million w.
dialogue* 2398 23
intelligence 3747 36
alternative* 5750 56
capabilit* 2205 21
abuse* 6371 62
device* 4831 47
friendly 2483 24
conventional 2723 26
surplus* 827 8
classified 1062 10

5. Discussion
5.1 Comparing the findings
Looking at Table 3, it becomes apparent that some of the euphemisms, mainly those
where the origin of the euphemism is not strictly political as for example abuse and
device, were more frequently used in general discourse (COCA) than in the political
context (CSPAE), and vice versa. This, however, is not the case with the most frequently
used euphemism found in CSPAE, dialogue, as the word in its non-euphemistic sense has
more to do with conversations between characters depicted in fiction than heated
discussions between politicians (CDO, 24/11/11). A possible reason for this could be that
the use of dialogue, in general discourse, has been adapted into taking on the meaning of
the euphemistic use of the word, becoming a standard jargon term for discussions within
a political context instead.

Table 3. Displaying the frequency per 1 million words for the euphemisms found in CSPAE and all
instances (including non-euphemistic use) of the terms found in COCA. The asterisk (*) refers to all
variants of the word having been taken into account.

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 CSPAE COCA
Euphemism Freq. per 1 Freq. per 1
million w. million w.
dialogue* 229 23
intelligence 69 36
alternative* 42 56
capabilit* 38 21
abuse* 26 62
device* 25 47
friendly 20 24
conventional 19 26
surplus* 17 8
classified 15 10

5.2 Reality and the use of political euphemisms

As was presented in section 2.1 of this paper, the way in which reality is perceived is
merely a construct of the language used to describe it, making euphemisms a type of
linguistic expression that allows reality to be viewed from a better angle. This means that
the responsibility for a fair representation within any type of discourse lies with the
producers of the discourse, i.e. the active discourse participants. In terms of political
discourse, this means that the responsibility of presenting the truth to the public lies with
the politicians, government officials and political commentators etc. involved in the
active political process.

Earlier in section 2.1.2, the positive and negative aspects of using official euphemisms
were mentioned. When looking through the context in which all of the euphemisms
found in CSPAE were used, it becomes apparent that in this political context the
negative concern seems to be the most relevant one. The ten euphemisms presented in
this paper were mainly used to either circle around having to answer questions directly
or in order to make a situation with heavy negative associations either seem more
positive or simply neutral. For example, when the press secretary, McCurry, was asked
about diplomatic issues in Russia and replied with, “They have a vigorous political life
in Russia. And we refrain from commenting on the internal domestic dialogue, political
dialogue that occurs in Russia” (White House, 1997). Also, when McCurry was asked
to comment on the previously stated support of a specific proposal regarding the partial

12
birth abortion legislation, there were no definite answers and he merely referred to the
possibility of “other alternative measures” (White House, 1997).

Another example of attempts to make political actions seem more positive through the
use of euphemisms include “we have a long memory and do not forget and continually
try to effectuate apprehensions through a variety of devices and means” (White House,
1996) which was a comment on how foreign state sponsored terrorism was dealt with.

This indicates that in political discourse, the truth of the matter is not as important as
avoiding negative connotations, and the use of euphemisms becomes a means by which
to deceive the public rather than to acknowledge the value of their opinions.

5.3 Limitations to the study

Looking at the corpora used in this study, there is a vast difference in their sizes and
content, meaning that the amount of data collected also varied greatly in terms of both
size and context. To avoid the sizes affecting the results, the frequency per one million
word was calculated and added to the results tables. However, this is not a foolproof
method and still allows for some discrepancies that must be acknowledged.

Because the study made use of the entire content of COCA between the specified time
period, there are instances where the words are not used as euphemisms, i.e. the results
could vary in terms of a lower frequency in euphemistic use of the words. This would
mean that there is a possibility that all euphemisms could be found more frequently in the
political context than in the general one. However, as was stated in section 5.1, this could
in fact be seen as the result of the terms being adapted into the jargon of a political context
instead.

Also, concerning the content of the corpora, CSPAE was focused on spoken American
English within a political context, whereas COCA makes use of American English
extracted from spoken, magazine, fiction, newspaper and academic sources. This means
that, although the purpose of the essay is to investigate the difference between the use of
political euphemisms in strictly political discourse and in more general types of discourse,
the variation of discourse types found in COCA may indeed be too general. Further
research may therefore benefit from making use of more specified corpora.

As mentioned previously, the euphemisms presented in this paper were picked out of two
separate works dealing with the use of euphemisms; Euphemisms: Over 3,000 ways to

13
avoid being rude or giving offence (Ayto, 1993) and Speak Softly: Euphemisms and such
(Noble, 1982). This was done in order to successfully limit the number of euphemisms
used in the study to enable a narrower focus of the research, but may have limited it in
other respects. For instance, both of the books are not very recent publications, meaning
that the euphemisms may not have been used in the same way then as they are now.
However, as the corpus data was focused on the period 1994-1998 the euphemisms should
give a fair representation of that time period.

6. Conclusion

Going by the hypotheses stated in section 2.3, the expected results would show that the
political euphemisms were found more frequently in discourse produced in a political,
rather than a general, context and be mainly be positively motivated. However, from what
was presented in the results it can be seen that this was not quite the case.

6.1 Is there a difference in the use of the identified political

euphemisms when comparing general American discourse to
American political discourse?
Despite the limitations discussed in section 5.3, what became apparent throughout the
course of this investigation is that the main difference between the frequency in use of
the political euphemisms when comparing general American discourse to American
political discourse was the original meaning of said euphemisms. Those which originated
from a political context were mainly used within political discourse, and those
euphemisms that had a general background were more likely to be found in the general
corpora. However, there was also some evidence indicating that euphemisms not
originating from a political context may still be more frequent within political discourse
due to them being adopted by the political jargon. Nevertheless, this final notion is not
the main issue discussed in this paper and would need further research before being
established as plausible.

14
6.2 What is the main motivation behind the use of the euphemisms
in American political discourse?
As mentioned previously in the theoretical framework in section 2, official euphemisms
in political discourse are sometimes used to avoid having to expose the more brutal
aspects of reality to the more sensitive ears of the public (Orwell, 1946). However, there
also existed a possibility of this use of euphemisms being either positively or negatively
motivated. This study has found that, after going through all of the occurrences of the
euphemisms in CSPAE and looking at their context, as was presented in sections 4.1 and
5.2, the negative motivation is the prevailing one. This is because the euphemisms
presented were mainly used in order to conceal the harshness of reality for the purpose of
furthering the political agenda, and not for the sake of valuing the opinions of the public.

15
References

Primary sources

Cambridge Dictionaries Online (CDO).

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) - Davies, M.

http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/

White House, Corpus of Spoken, Professional American English (CSPAE) - Barlow, M.

http://www.athel.com/cpsa.html

Secondary sources

Ayto, J. (1993). Euphemisms: Over 3,000 ways to avoid being rude or giving offence.
London: Bloomsbury Publishing Limited.

Chandler, D. (2007). Semiotics: The Basics. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

Chilton, P. (2004). Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and practice. London:

Routledge.

Eriksson, P. (2009). Caught Off Base or Scoring a Home Run?: Baseball Metaphors in
US Political Discourse. Stockholm: Stockholm University, Department of English.

Fox, Roy F. (2000). MediaSpeak: Three American Voices. Westport, CT, USA:
Greenwood Press.

Grillo, E. (2005). Power without Domination. Dialogism and the Empowering

property of Communication. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Kany, C. (1960). American Spanish Euphemisms. Berkeley: University of California

Press.

Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/

Noble, V. (1982). Speak Softly: Euphemisms and Such. Sheffield: University of

16
 Sheffield Printing Unit.

Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English Language. London : Horizon.

Paltridge, B. (2006). Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum International Publishing

Group.

Robinson, G.A. (2011)

http://www.writingenglish.com/euphemism.htm

Terwilliger, R. (1968). In Timothy, J (1999). Why We Curse. Philadelphia, PA, USA:

John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Van Dijk, T.A. (2002). Political discourse and political cognition. In Paul A. Chilton
& Christina Schäffner (2002). Politics as Text and Talk. Analytical approaches to
political discourse. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Ädel, A. (2010). How to use corpus linguistics in the study of political discourse. In
McCarthy, M. & O'Keeffe, A. The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics.
London and New York: Routledge.

17
Appendix A
A list of the twenty-nine euphemisms picked out of Noble (1982) and Ayto (1993). Those
marked in bold are those mainly discussed in the investigation.

1. Abuse
2. Activist
3. Alternative
4. Asset
5. Candid
6. Capability
7. Ceiling
8. Classified
9. Cleansed
10. Collateral damage
11. Conventional
12. Cordial
13. Covert
14. Device
15. Dialogue
16. Freedom fighter
17. Friendly
18. Intelligence
19. Liquidate
20. Non-Authorized
21. Protective reaction
22. Preventive strike
23. PTSD
24. Re-educated
25. Relocated
26. Surgical strike
27. Surplus
28. Spin
29. Terminate

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