The Sociolinguistic Analysis of Amharic Euphemisms of Magician

Abstract

Taboos are proscription of behaviors that people in various cultures forbid to express in public. On the other hand, euphemisms are pleasant cultural linguistic strategies which societies use for displacing offensive expressions. Euphemisms are conventional figures of speech that people in different cultures use to mitigate fear, shame, disgust, disagreements and avoid quarrelsome. However, it violates the cooperative principles. But as the goal of euphemism is to show politeness and to save face, it achieves the politeness principles. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to examine the sociolinguistic analysis of Amharic euphemisms of magicians within the frameworks of politeness and relevance theories. Descriptive qualitative method was used to conduct the study. To achieve those objectives, data were collected from native speakers of Amharic by using semi-structured interview, focus group discussions and introspection. Informants were selected by using snowball and purposive sampling techniques. Results show that native speakers of Amharic in the study areas, in the churches, the mosques, the homes, the schools and the hospitals domains considered that using magic in public is taboo. Instead, they use different euphemistic expressions. In addition, people in the study areas used various euphemistic construction strategies such as metaphor, idiom, borrowing, circumlocution, overstatement and understatement. The findings also indicate that research participants used various mechanisms for the formation of euphemisms to avoid taboo expressions, to minimize conflicts, to build social relationships, to save face as well as to show respect.