Euphemism and Dysphemism during the War of the Spanish Succession (1710-1713): George Ridpath

Raquel Sánchez Ruiz

doi:10.18172/cif.2959

Authors

Raquel Sánchez Ruiz University of Castilla-La Mancha http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0022-7734

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18172/cif.2959

Keywords:

euphemism, dysphemism, George Ridpath, political writings, War of the Spanish Succession

Abstract

Euphemism and dysphemism are common within political communication as the former is a linguistic make-up leading to deception and distortion of reality (Rodríguez González 1991: 90) whereas the latter highlights the most pejorative traits of the taboo with an offensive aim (Crespo-Fernández 2015: 2). Considering this, I have analysed euphemism and dysphemism in George Ridpath’s political writings during the War of the Spanish Succession (1710-1713), in a corpus comprising two journals (The Observator and The Flying Post), and examined how this author used language to shape and manipulate Great Britain’s public opinion during the Stuart period. To this end, I have followed Taboada and Grieve’s (2004) approach of Appraisal Theory (Martin and White 2005) as well as Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson 1987), Face Theory (Goffman 1967), Charteris-Black’s Critical Metaphor Analysis (2005: 45) and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Gibbs 2011). The findings show that Ridpath used x-phemistic language to positively self-present the ingroup and negatively other-present the outgroup.

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Author Biography

Raquel Sánchez Ruiz, University of Castilla-La Mancha

Departamento de Filología Moderna (Inglés)

Profesora Contratada Doctora

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