El eufemismo léxico del discurso político y sus efectos cognitivos

Abstract

In some studies about euphemism it has been pointed out that politicians usually resort to euphemistic expressions to conceal unpleasant facts that could damage their own image (Rodríguez González, 1991; Roldán Pérez, 2003; Crespo Fernández, 2005a). This article examines euphemism from a pragmatic-cognitive perspective (Chamizo Domínguez & Sánchez Benedito, 2000; Casas Gómez, 2009; Sytnyk, 2014) and explains some mental effects derived from a series of euphemistic expressions which have recently been used in Spanish political discourse. In particular, the paper suggests the existence of three phenomena which have an influence on the addressee’s mental representation of reality: lexical framing, blocked access to the referent and conceptual stigmatization.