A study of euphemism found in political articles in the national section of The Jakarta Post

Euphemism is endemic in our society due to the fact that it is part of language customs; therefore it has been on every culture. Every generation and every culture develop their own euphemisms; therefore, euphemism is a mental phenomena, almost all culture seem to have certain terms things that people try to avoid mentioning directly. One of the principles of euphemism is that the disprefered expressions should be replaced by the preferred expressions to execute user’s communicative intention on a given occasion or context and to avoid the possible loss of face. However, euphemisms do not necessarily have to deal with taboos or bring negative impact such as a point of deception; it also has positive impact; since, in modern usage, euphemisms are often concerned with politeness. In certain situation using euphemism instead of saying things directly is considered polite.

The objectives of this study are to find out the types and the functions of euphemism found in political articles in the national section of the Jakarta Post. This research is designed by using descriptive qualitative method. They are analyzed inductively through the observation done by the writer herself. The data are collected from Jakarta Post newspaper, especially the national section.

The key instrument of this study is the writer herself. The analysis of the data is categorizing the data based on the types and the functions of euphemism. Second, discussing and interpreting the data from each category based on theories Allan and Burridge, and Brown and Yule. And the last step is discussing the whole data sources and continuing by making conclusion from the result of analysis to find out the types and the functions of euphemism.

As the result, the writer found the main findings of this study included first of all, the types of euphemism indicated that euphemism, which appeared most frequently in the national section of the Jakarta Post, were: metaphor, idiom, hyperbole, litotes, synecdoche, and associative engineering. Then, there were six metaphor, one idiom, one hyperbole (overstatement), one litotes (understatement), three synecdoche, and one associative engineering.

Other types, such as circumlocution, technical jargon, general-for specific, denial, acronym and abbreviation, euphemistic dysphemism, and metonymy were not found. Second, the functions of euphemism, the writer found five functions of euphemism, they were eight informational function, two evaluate function, one organize function, one request function,
and one criticize function.

Finally, the writer hopes that this thesis could make contribution to the writer herself especially.The writer herself hopes that this research could give a good contribution to the further writers who will develop and conduct the research on euphemism. It is hoped for further writer to conduct the research, which not only focuses on type and function of euphemism of written language but also in oral language, for example, in the context of political speech or political campaign. It is also hoped that the study of euphemism is not focused on English language but also in other languages.