Euphemism as strategy

the conceptual engineering project of the Comfort Women dossier

Abstract

This paper examines the historical Comfort Women dossier in Asia through the lens of the contemporary debate on conceptual engineering. It investigates how the concepts and classifications within the conceptual engineering framework apply to this historical case, widely discussed in fields such as sociology, human rights, and international relations. The analysis of the dossier discerns three linguistic aspects: lexical, pragmatic, and semantic. The term “comfort women” describes women, predominantly young Koreans, forced into sexual slavery by imperial Japan’s military during World War II. Originally coined in a cynical manner by an oppressive patriarchal system, the lexicon was later pragmatically appropriated as a euphemism by the victims in their self-identification and quest for justice. This strategic reuse aimed to navigate the troubled waters of moral stigma and other societal challenges rooted in conservative and patriarchal elements of Confucianism in Korean society. The paper emphasizes that the conceptual engineering project in this case involves preserving the lexical item while adjusting its semantic value (meaning/intension). In addition, it succinctly provides both a normative discussion on what descriptions should—or should not—be adopted to designate the victims and why (conceptual ethics), and a reflection inspired in the field of Pragmatics, especially in the debate on slurs and pejoratives.