A Study Of Vague Language In Business Refusal Letters

Pragmatic vagueness, one of the striking features of linguistics, has been attached growing attention for researches within the whole linguistic sphere. Many related researches have been done from the perspectives like politeness principles and relevance theory, ranging from literature, translations and business etc. This investigation has been conducted under the framework of Verschueren's Adaptation Theory, with the aim to explore the employment of vague language in business refusal letters. Qualitative and quantitative study have both been adopted in the analysis of 40 selected business refusal letters in achieving the ultimate goal of answering three questions which have been raised at the beginning of the thesis. The three researching questions are, firstly what are the characteristics of vague language used in business refusal letters? Secondly, how is the vague language employed in the business refusal letters? Thirdly, what are the pragmatic functions of the vague language being adopted in business refusal letters? After classifying the 40 letters into 4 types, the conclusion could be drawn that the application of vague language in business refusal letters is a process of dynamic adaptation to the real contexts, and a mutual choices that have been made from both the contexts and linguistic structure. The principles of adapting to the language users, adapting to the language users'psychological motivations and adapting to the social world have to be taken into considerations in the dynamic process in achieving the goals of increasing the appropriateness of language, enhancing the flexibility of business communication, crisis avoidance and "You-attitude" actualization. It is with the author's sincere hope that this tentative study could be of any help for the business people, English language learners and researchers within the vague language study field.