Abstract: This paper is an attempt to describe the linguistic taboos related to woman and their euphemistic expressions in Oromo societies within the framework of face and polite theory. Focus group discussion and interview are used to gather the data of this study. Taboo is any word or expression that if mentioned in public causes embarrassment and feeling of shame or sense of shock, and offending the hearer’s sensibilities or beliefs; while euphemistic expression is the substitution of an offensive expression by another softer, more ambiguous expression, or a periphrastic one to avoid these taboo expressions which offend the hearers. In Oromo societies there are different taboo words/expressions considered as taboo related to woman. Taboos related to the word ‘woman’ itself, virginity, pregnancy, delivery and menstruation are considered in this paper. This study paves the way to inform the reader about taboo words/expressions related to woman and the mechanism of substituting them by polite expressions in Oromo. If this norm is violated/the direct taboo words or expressions are spoken in front of the woman, she may be shocked or feel embarrassment. This circumstance again raises another conflict among speaker and hearer. In order to avoid this problem, this paper contributes a great role for everybody comes from different culture and wants to know Oromo culture/language as well as taboos related to woman and how to substitute polite expressions instead of these forbidden words/expressions.
Keywords: Oromo, taboo, politeness, euphemism and face.
Title: A Study of Linguistic Taboos Related to Woman and their Euphemistic Expressions in Oromo Society
Author: Birhanu Takele Bayisa
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3164 (online), ISSN 2348-3156 (Print)
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