Eufemizmy we współczesnym języku słowackim

Abstract

The presented book takes up the issue of euphemisms in contemporary Slovak language. Euphemisms are a widespread and, in all likelihood, a very old phenomenon, occurring in every language variety and in each of the styles indicated. They are a vast and exceptionally fascinating field of research, often examined not only by linguists, but also culture scientists, anthropologists, and ethnologists, mainly in the context of the functioning of taboo. Despite considerable interest in the subject, there are only a few fragmentary works on euphemization in the field of Slovak linguistics. These deliberations fill the void in Slovak language studies in Poland and Slovakia. The author’s intent was not to create a comprehensive description of euphemisms, but rather to indicate selected linguistic aspects of the issue – aspects, which seemed significant and distinctive. The publication presents such research aspects of euphemizing lexis as defining euphemisms, their comprehension in the context of the taboo phenomenon, specifying semantic fields of selected euphemisms, and manners in which they are realized linguistically. Each of the chapters can serve as a separate object of more detailed analyses and characteristics. Lexical units are the subject of analysis – single, established tokens, as well as periphrastic, common expressions and terms, ofphraseologized or metaphorized nature. Research subject matter has been excerpted from the national corpus of Slovak language, which includes one billion and twenty three million textual units. The selected examples have also been found in literary and press texts. They include euphemisms from both colloquial and official speech. The author attempted to describe these euphemisms not only in the context of the system, but also in view of their cultural and social conditions. She points at distinct changes in quantity and functioning of euphemisms in contemporary Slovak language, which occurred in the early 1990s – their functioning in a new reality, different from that of the times of a joint Czechoslovakian state. It is impossible to describe the entire range of euphemisms in any given language, since euphemisms (neologisms and nonce words) are constantly created, therefore this work is an attempt to broadly present this complex problematic, and thus become an inspiration to continue research on euphemisms in Slovak language.