International Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Studies (IJAHSS); Volume: 2; Issue: 3; Pages: 19-27 || May – Jun. 2020|| | P a g e - 19 Introduction: The study of the semantic change has always been a major field of interest and a controversial issue to be discussed in the historical linguistic development. Focusing on the relationship between the choice of words or lexical items and the change of meaning they manifest, helps understanding how the communicative system works within a given community. According to [1], euphemism is considered as one of the common stylistic choices that individuals use in respect to some personal and public factors. They claim that euphemism is a reflection of the speaker’s attempt who is trying to avoid or conceal a prohibited expressions that he may suspect that it is going to be considered offensive in his speech community, either from a cultural, social or religious perspective. This study, however, is an attempt to investigate the use of euphemistic expressions among Algerians, and to figure out whether there are any similarities or differences between males and females concerning the use of euphemism. Hence, due to the complex and diverse linguistic situation in Algeria, this study tries to explain the semantic change in Algeria as far as euphemism is concerned. As it aims to answer the following questions:  What are the euphemistic strategies used by males and females?  What are the similarities and differences between them?  Does the degree of formality influence the choice of euphemistic strategies? Euphemism has been widely defined and tackled by a number of scholars and researchers. [2] Coined the term euphemism as “the extension of ordinary expressions that are used to express embarrassing ideas”. [3] Illustrates the definition of euphemism as “the word or phrase that is uttered in a given linguistic context which has the ability to softe n unpleasant issues”. Moreover [4] provides a detailed definition that explains the term “euphemism” from different perspectives: “euphemism is the cognitive process of conceptualisation of a forbidden reality, which, manifested in discourse through the use of linguistic mechanisms including lexical substitution, phonetic alteration, morphological modification, composition or inversion, syntagmatic grouping or combination, verbal or paralinguistic modulation or textual description, enables the speaker, in a certain ‘‘context’’ or in a specific pragmatic situation, to attenuate a certain forbidden concept or reality.” [5] Coined the term FTA (Face Threatening Act) in which they introduce the notion of “face” that reflects the public self-image that can either be saved or threatened. Thus, euphemism is regarded as a politeness strategy that individuals use either to save or threaten not only the interlocutor’s face, but also their own. ISSN: 2582 – 3647(Online) International Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Studies (IJAHSS) (Multidisciplinary Open Access Refereed e-Journal) A Gender Based Study on the Use of Euphemistic Strategies Among Algerians Otmane Abdelkader DRISSI * Department of English Language and Literature, University of Jordan ABSTRACT Semantic changes as well as semantic innovation are the focus interest of many scholars nowadays. The choice of words in particular situations to soften the utterance, and avoid or limit embarrassment is generally referred to as euphemism. Thus, due to the complex linguistic, cultural and social situations in Algeria, this study investigates the use of euphemism amongst Algerian males and females. The population of the study consisted of 30 Algerian PhD students at the level of the University of Jordan (15 males/15females). The sample was presented with a discourse completion task to depict different types of euphemistic strategies in both formal and informal situations, and to test whether there are any similarities and differences between males and females. The finding of the study revealed the use of different strategies amongst both genders, where females clearly outnumbered their male counterparts as far as euphemistic strategies are concerned. Females used 8 different strategies namely: understatement, metaphor, implication, loan words and onomatopoeia. Male on the other side used limited euphemistic strategies, where implication, understatement and metaphor were the dominant strategies, mainly in formal situations. Furthermore, results of the study suggest that the choice of euphemistic strategies is deeply associated with the degree of formality, where both males and females manage to increase euphemistic strategies in formal situations compared to informal ones. To conclude, this gender-based study explains the semantic change as far as euphemism is concerned and offers clear insights on the preferences of each gender in using euphemistic strategies depending on the degree of formality. Keywords: Euphemism, Algerians, males/females, euphemistic strategy, similarities/differences, degree of formality © Copy Right, IJAHSS, 2020. All Rights Reserved.