Euphemisms for "Death" in Romanian and German

Abstract

The main purpose of the research is to analyze euphemisms expressing „death” in Romanian and German, as central elements of the antinomy prohibition – non-prohibition. The study focuses on euphemistic phraseological expressions, which reflect cultural attitudes and discursive strategies to avoid the direct naming of death. The corpus examined in both languages is semantically classified into metaphorical patterns such as „journey”, „sleep”, „end”, „illness” or „return home” and is compared from a linguistic, stylistic and symbolic perspective. The paper highlights cross-cultural similarities and differences and analyzes the presence of these constructions in contemporary communication. The results contribute to understanding the socio-pragmatic function of euphemisms and support the correct translation of obituaries, death announcements and other funerary texts in multilingual contexts.