Euphemization of Death Conceptual Domain in Old English

Euphemisation is a popular research topic in linguistics. However, no reliable classification has appeared for the study of cryptolalic euphemisms because the adjacent position of this concept in the terminology of euphemisms remains understudied. Old English texts are vessels of cultural transmission in the linguistic aspect of death euphemization via written speech. In this regard, they seem to be a promising material for the semiotics of culture- language relations, which makes it possible to use linguistics to interpret cultural phenomena and vice versa. The research objective was to analyze the conceptual domain of death in Old English based on euphemistic lexemes. The samples were obtained from the explanatory Anglo-Saxon Bosworth-Toller Dictionary that covers the period of VII–XII centuries. The materials were subjected to the lexicographic method, conceptual analysis, semantic analysis (semasiology and onomasiology of euphemisms), classification, and systematization. The article introduces cryptolalic euphemism as a term at the intersection of taboo euphemisms and cryptolalia. The research revealed a number of micro-motives of death and dying in Old English. In line with the semasiological and onomasiological affiliation of the lexemes, death was represented as a path, as two entities separated, as a rest, as a manifestation of fate, as a form of life, as a downward movement, and as a point in time and space. The author identified the framework of the conceptual domain of death by a lexicographic, conceptual, and semiotic analysis of the euphemisms, as well as outlined the principles and methods of euphemization for the phenomenon of death in Old English. Death as a path appeared to be the most popular micro-motive, its euphemisms being word-formation replacements of mostly descriptive nature.

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