CIRCULATION OF EUPHEMISMS IN GERMAN LANGUAGE

Abstract

An American psychologist Steven Pinker has formulated a concept of euphemism treadmill (germ. Euphemismus Tretmühle). He assumes that eventually every euphemism adopts all negative associations of the word that it stands for. According to his theory the concepts themselves are primary, but not the words as variative euphemistic naming units. If primary concepts have negative connotations, they spread over secondary naming units.

This phenomenon is also typical of the German language. One of the numerous examples is a row of euphemisms regarding to people having corporal defects: Krüppel — invalide — Behinderter. Linguists point that the word Behinderter originated from medical technical language also counts as pejorative now. New euphemisms are proposed: „Mensch mit Behinderung“, „Mensch mit besonderen Bedürfnissen“. 2013 „die deutsche Armutskonferenz“ published „Liste der sozialen Unwörter“ from 23 words unwelcomed to use in communication. Even such words as alleinerziehend, arbeitslos, bildungsferne Schichten, illegale, sozial schwach, Wirtschaftsflüchtlinge were included. Euphemisms were not proposed in the list, but it is obvious that their circulation is going on.

Keywords:

uphemism, dysphemism, pejorative, negative/positive connotation, constant feature of language