
Contents
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4.1 Introduction 4.1 Introduction
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4.2 Disease 4.2 Disease
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4.2.1 HIV/AIDS 4.2.1 HIV/AIDS
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4.2.2 Cancer 4.2.2 Cancer
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4.2.3 Mental illness 4.2.3 Mental illness
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4.3 Death 4.3 Death
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4.3.1 Death as loss 4.3.1 Death as loss
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4.3.2 Death as sleep/rest 4.3.2 Death as sleep/rest
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4.3.3 Death as a journey 4.3.3 Death as a journey
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4.3.4 Slang, colloquialism, and humour 4.3.4 Slang, colloquialism, and humour
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4.4 Conclusions 4.4 Conclusions
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4 Speaking of disease and death
Get accessRéka Benczes is Associate Professor at the Institute of Behavioural Studies and Communication Theory, Corvinus University of Budapest (Hungary), and an Affiliate of the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University (Australia). She is the author of Creative Compounding in English (John Benjamins 2006); Kognitív nyelvészet ([Cognitive linguistics] with Zoltán Kövecses, Akadémiai Kiadó 2010); and dozens of articles on compounding, lexical creativity, and metaphorical pg xconceptualization. Her most recent monograph is Rhyme over Reason: Phonological Motivation in English (Cambridge University Press 2018). Email: [email protected].
Kate Burridge FAHA, is Professor of Linguistics at Monash University. Her main areas of research are language change, the Pennsylvania German of Anabaptist communities in North America, notions of linguistic taboo, and the structure and history of English. Recent books include Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language (with Keith Allan, 2006); Introducing English Grammar (with Kersti Börjars, 2010); Gift of the Gob: Morsels of English Language History (2010); Wrestling with Words and Meanings (with Réka Benczes, 2014); For the Love of Language (with Tonya Stebbins, 2015); and Understanding Language Change (with Alex Bergs, 2016). Email: [email protected].
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Published:11 December 2018
Cite
Abstract
This chapter investigates the euphemistic language use associated with disease—in particular, HIV/AIDS, cancer, and mental illness—and death. Fear and superstition have enjoyed a long attachment to our beliefs surrounding disease and death; the challenge of confronting the biological limits of our own bodies have brought forth a vast repository of euphemistic language in connection with both subjects. This euphemistic language heavily relies on metaphorical conceptualizations in order to best achieve the displacement effect. By examining the figurative language related to disease and death, the chapter also explores whether the metaphorical conceptualizations merely reflect our ways of thinking about illnesses and death, or whether they can change or control our attitudes to possible health risks and what choices we can make to avert them.
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