2. Features of Political Euphemism
Euphemism is defined in different ways from the perspectives of pragmatics and style: Hongrui Wen (2002) once
quoted several representative definitions, which have it in common that euphemism is a replacement of ordinary
expressions with propitious or exaggerated ones. Political euphemism is created in political life and serves political
purposes. Generally speaking, it is a tool for political participants to hide scandals, disguise the truth, guide public
thoughts when discussing social issues or events. In spite of some common features political euphemism shares with
others, it has three typical features.
2.1 Greater Degree of Deviation from its Signified
According to Swiss linguist Saussure, language signs are a combination of the signifier, the phonetic forms of language
and the signified, objects in existence represented by linguistic forms. Due to the lack of direct or logical relations
between the two, they have a discretionary relationship with each other, making it possible to create euphemism by
replacing the signifier. Because euphemism is just created by transforming the signifier to enlarge the association
distance between the signifier and the signified, euphemism meanings stay relative to their former zero-degree ones (Xu,
2002, p7). Although euphemism and its former zero-degree signifier refer to the same signified, political euphemism is
different from those commonly used euphemistic forms in order to avoid death and other physical phenomena in that it
deviates greatly from the meaning expressed by its former signifier, or even a complete distortion. For example, Former
US President Reagan once named the 10-warhead intermediate-range missile as “peacekeeper”; some later political