Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

Sweet talking and offensive language 33
(saving) face. Just as we look after our own face (self-respect), we are
expected to be considerate of, and look after, the face-wants of others. Those
who are skilled at this are said to have social savoir faire; they are said to be
perceptive and diplomatic. In short, in Anglo communities, face is one’s
public self-image. That is, the way that one perceives one’s self to be viewed
in the eyes of others. In European communities until the mid twentieth
century, a person’s public self-image was largely determined by his/her
family’s place in society; even though wealth and education were then, as
now, a social asset (this is explicit in the earlier quotes from Fielding’s
eighteenth-century novel Tom Jones). In some other communities, the notion
of self is still sublimated in a similar way to the public image of the family,
clan or religious community of which one is a member; but because we are
focusing on language taboos in English, we will stick with face as ‘public
self-image’. Face has two aspects: the want of a person to have their attributes,
achievements, ideas, possessions and goals well regarded by others;
and the want of a person not to be imposed upon by others. 4 Face can be lost
(affronted), gained (enhanced), or just maintained. In virtually every utterance,
a speaker needs to take care that what is said will maintain, enhance or
affront a hearer’s face in just the way s/he intends, while at the same time
maintaining or enhancing the speaker’s own face (which can be achieved by
being self-effacing). There is a general presumption that a speaker will be
polite except when intending to affront the hearer.
The term speaker is to be interpreted as the person who utters the language
under consideration; speaker is widely used by academic linguists to refer to
writers as well as to producers of spoken language. Similarly, hearer makes
abbreviated reference to the audience or readership – the person or persons
addressed.
To return to the definition of orthophemisms and euphemisms, we conclude
that both arise from conscious or unconscious self-censoring; they are used to
avoid the speaker being embarrassed and/or ill thought of and, at the same
time, to avoid embarrassing and/or offending the hearer or some third party.
This coincides with the speaker being polite. Now to the difference between
orthophemism and euphemism:
An orthophemism is typically more formal and more direct (or literal)
than the corresponding euphemism.
A euphemism is typically more colloquial and figurative (or indirect) than
the corresponding orthophemism.
Like euphemisms, dysphemisms are typically more colloquial and figurative
than orthophemisms (but, for instance, to truthfully call someone fat is direct).
We therefore suggest that X-phemisms (the union set of orthophemisms,
euphemisms and dysphemisms) are related as shown in Figure 2.1.