Research On The Function Of Hedges In Diplomatic Language From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Vague language is an essential property of natural language existing extensively in various aspects of human life. Hedges have become an indispensible part of vague language and the phenomenon has aroused the interest of many scholars since this concept is introduced. The research on it involves different linguistic fields such as semantics and pragmatics. The function of hedges in different registers has become a research focus in recent years, and the relevant research results have been achieved.The relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson tends to study the human communication from a cognitive perspective. According to Sperber and Wilson, communication is an ostensive-inferential process which involves informative intention and communicative intention. The speaker intends to express his intentions lucidly and precisely while the listener strives to understand and infer the real communicative intention from the information conveyed by the speaker, so as to achieve the purpose of successful communication.Based on relevance theory, a qualitative study is conducted to investigate lexical and syntactic hedges in the speeches delivered in Copenhagen Climate Change Conference and the documents signed in the conference. The thesis discusses how the speakers made themselves understood by employing hedges and how the listeners achieved the optimal relevance by inferring. The research findings show that hedges in diplomatic speeches do not reduce the accuracy of language use. Instead they help the listeners to indentify context, reduces the efforts made by the listeners in the course of utterance understanding and inferring and to find relevance among utterances in order to understand communicative intentions correctly and achieve the purpose of successful communication. Hedges make expressions implicit and tactful, firm and powerful, meanwhile, safeguarding the face of the listener and avoiding embarrassment. The use of hedges helps the speaker to avoid bearing unnecessary responsibility and prevents him from being misunderstood. It can ease tense relations, and embody the humor, wisdom and firm stance of the diplomats owing to the special characteristics of hedges used in diplomatic speeches: implicit, powerful, flexible and highly efficient.