Euphemization in the news article headlines

Euphemization in the News Article Headlines There has been little scientific research on euphemisms in Lithuanian linguistics. This work is devoted to the analysis of euphemisms in the news article headlines in the most popular news websites delfi.lt and lrytas.lt; uneuphemized headlines were also included in this analysis. This research is the first, which not only mentions euphemized topics, but also tries to define the most frequently euphemized subjects, the ratio between euphemized and uneuphemized headlines in certain topics, the currency of euphemisms in specific news websites. In order to achieve this goal, the analysis of the topics of euphemized and uneuphemized headlines was carried out, a detailed description of euphemisms in the news article headlines was made, the purposes of euphemization were discussed, uneuphemized headlines of different topics were also included in this description, Afer that, the statistical analisis of euphemised and uneuphemised headlines was carried out, it has showed the distribution of topics, the number of euphemized and uneuphemized headlines, the most frequently euphemized topics in the news article headlines of news websites delfi.lt and lrytas.lt. The results show that the most frequently euphemized topics have been found to be sex, sexuality, loving relationship, politics, war; specific negatively assessed and unpleasant subjects are euphemized in every topic; the main purpose of euphemization in all euphemized headlines is to veil and cover up these negatively assessed subjects and phenomenons; uneuphemized headlines predominate in all topics and euphemized headlines represent only a small part of all analysed headlines (from 5 to 8 %); the comparison of headlines of news websites delfi.lt and lrytas.lt, revealed certain tendencies and differences between the headlines, for example, the different number of articles of specific topics, a greater number of euphemized headlines of specific topic in that news website which has more headlines of that specific topic. The results of this research can be regarded as useful not only for linguists examining the euphemization, but also for the researchers of discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, linguistic pragmatics, sociolinguistics, public communication, stylistics, because this research tries to answer to the question what is regarded as taboo in our society, it shows the reflection of our society‘s attitudes in the media, the influence of language on human mind and opinion about specific object or phenomenon