A Study On Hedges And Their Functions In Communication

In daily communication, people sometimes use precise language to express theirideas, but more often people prefer to use vague language to convey information.Vagueness is completely intrinsic in human language and the frequent use of hedgesjust fully testifies this inborn nature of language. The use of hedges is a commonphenomenon in language communication, no matter in verbal communication orwritten communication, hedges function differently and uniquely which can not besubstituted by precise language. The appropriate use of hedges in interaction canenhance the expressive force and communicative effect of language, making theexpressions more natural, decent, polite, flexible, and effective. Moreover, the rightuse of hedges can send people's emotion and ideas more properly, thereby helps tomaintain a good interpersonal relationship between the two parties in communicationand achieve the communicative goal successfully. The scholars and linguists abroadhave explored hedges from various perspectives since the 1970s, but at home the deepstudy on hedges is still relatively rare. Due to the above reasons, this thesis attemptsto study hedges and their functions in communication more systematically, aiming topresent a full and deep understanding of hedges. Moreover, the thesis also hopes toprovide some suggestions and implications for foreign language teaching in therespect of improving the learners' communicative competence and pragmaticcompetence.Hedges when they are first put forward as a linguistic term is a semantic concept.When they are used to describe one object, event or some internal feelings, hedgescan extend or narrow the scope of the category they modify. In recent years, alongwith the deepening of study on vagueness of language, the study of hedges inpragmatics also becomes one of the most appealing topics. This thesis gives apresentation of the linguistic forms of hedges on the basis of previous study andmainly investigates their functions in communication from a pragmatic perspective. Inthis thesis, the author examines hedges and their communicative functions as well aspeople's motives in using hedges through some pragmatic theories: CooperativePrinciple, Conversational Implicature and Politeness Principle. From the point of viewof pragmatics, hedges are often regarded as a safe strategy when they are joined withsome proposition, to express the addresser's internal attitude or opinion. Besides,hedges are treated as an effective communicative strategy to smooth the process ofcommunication. In daily life, people always use hedges unconsciously, thus a gooduse of hedges is also a kind of technique to win trust and respect from the parties incommunication.Based on the present study on hedges at home and abroad, the author goes deeperinto hedges' important influence exerted on the utterance and the interlocutors incommunication. And through the analysis of a large number of examples, thefollowing conclusions can be reached: (1) Under certain circumstance, the use ofhedges allows the addresser to pass over the unnecessary precise information so as tomake the whole communication efficient, and hedges can insure the smoothcommunication in their particular way. (2) Hedges, as a sort of positive politenessstrategy, negative politeness strategy and self-protection strategy, play an importantpart in maintaining the interlocutors' faces in communication. (3) Hedges can functionas a useful textual device in written communication. At the end of this thesis, someimplications are brought forward from the special functions of hedges for foreignlanguage teaching, including how to cultivate foreign language learners' awarenesstowards hedges and approaches proposed for teaching hedges in daily teaching work.All these suggestions aim at improving the foreign language learners' communicativecompetence and their ability to manage the conversation skillfully and naturally.Lastly, the future work and possible research are put forward in the hope that moresignificant study on hedges could be presented.