Effects of gender and degree of formality on the use of euphemistic strategies in Iraqi Arabic

Abstract Although euphemism has been studied in many Arabic dialects, it not yet received due attention Iraqi (IA). This study investigates the use of euphemistic strategies by IA speakers and effect gender degree formality on these strategies. In order to achieve objectives, a discourse completion test (DCT) was developed distributed 160 (80 males 80 females) university students. The data were analysed quantitively qualitatively using adopted from number previous frameworks. findings show that participants used variety strategies, with deletion strategy being most frequently when talking about topic death, fuzzy words for mental illness, implication obesity. analysis also revealed plays key role illness an effective all three topics.