Modalities of Verbal Mitigation in Literary Language: Artful vs. Explicit Sexual Euphemism

Abstract

[Abstract] It is my purpose in this paper to provide an overview of two modalities of euphemism detected in the novels The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence and Yellow Dog by Martin Amis, referred to as ‘artful’ and ‘explicit euphemism’, that account for the wide range of lexical possibilities to deal with the realm of sex while trying to avoid the coarse word. In this regard, I will be devoted to exploring the main linguistic patterns of these modes of verbal mitigation, namely their degree of ambiguity, lexical neutralization of the taboo, the metaphorical language they resort to, mitigating capacity and contextual relevance. The results obtained support the idea that the traditional concept of euphemism should be revised and extended, since the escape from the coarse word is by no means limited to vague or indirect references, as traditional scholarship claimed. In fact, an explicit and plain-spoken euphemism coexists with ambiguous and connotative references to sexual issues, as shown in the literary texts aforementioned.