An Analysis Of Hedges In Online Communication From The Perspective Of The Relevance Theory

Fuzziness is the natural property of a language and it is also widespread in the use of language.In daily conversations,communicators frequently utilize fuzzy words intentionally or unintentionally to smoothly proceed with their communication.Hedge,as an important member of the fuzzy language family,has received extensive attention from the linguist community since its first introduction by American linguist Lakoff in 1972.Then its research field has gradually shifted from semantics to pragmatics.As the commonest form of fuzzy language,hedges are irreplaceable duo to their rich linguistic forms and pragmatic functions.The proper use of hedges directly affects the final effect of communication.With the advent of the Internet era,the transmission of network communication information is characterized by fastness and transparency,creating an unprecedented communicative mode.It is demonstrated by previous studies that the network communication context,though infinite and virtual,lacks such non-linguistic contextual elements as intonation,facial expression,eye contact and gesture.Therefore,in online communication one communicator cannot base his interpretation of the other communicator's underlying intentions on non-linguistic contextual elements.In order to better convey online communicators'underlying intentions and to smooth communication,hedges are extensively employed by Internet users in online context.Hedges though no doubt gain great popularity from online communicators,their use in online communication context has seldom been studied by scholars.In the 1980s,the Relevance Theory presented an ostensive-inferential model on the basis of the inheritance and criticism of the two modes of decoding and reasoning of traditional discourse interpretation.According to the Relevance Theory,communication is a process in which one communicative party produces ostensive stimulus and the other party seeks for optimal relevance through inference.The communicative view of the Relevance Theory has aroused great interest in scholars from cognitive linguistics,psychology,philosophy and other fields since it was first put forward in 1986.Scholars further apply the Relevance Theory to studies of multiple linguistic phenomena.However,few linguists have studied hedges from the perspective of the Relevance Theory.In view of the above research background,the present study attempts to utilize Relevance Theory as the theoretical framework to study the relevance-theoretic analysis of hedges in online communication context and their pragmatic functions.With 725 twitters selected from Trump's online social platform as a self-built corpus,the study adopts both the qualitative research method and the quantitative research method.It uses quantitative research method to statistically divide hedges into different types and employs quality research method to analyze those classified hedges with corresponding examples so as to answer the following three questions:(1)What is the distribution pattern of the use of hedges in Trump's twitters?(2)What are the features of the interpretation of hedges in online communicative context compared with face-to-face context from the perspective of the Relevance Theory?(3)How do communicators employ hedges to produce ostensive stimulus and how does the recipient seek for optimal relevance through inference of this ostensive stimulus?What are pragmatic functions of different hedges as ostensive stimulus?This study discovers that:(1)Hedges are frequently employed in Trump's Twitter dynamics,with a frequency of 31.18 rimes per thousand words.There are four kinds of hedges in twitters,namely,modal auxiliary hedges,approximators,shields,and hedges related to time.Approximators further can be divided into adaptors and rounders while shields further fall into plausibility shields and attribution shields.In general,the modal auxiliary has the highest frequency of use and plausibility shield the lowest frequency of use,which are 11.99 times per thousand words and 0.58 times per thousand words respectively.In addition,new forms of attribution shield occur in twitters,such as forward directly and the form "indirect quotation+@somebody;(2)Owing to its own distinctive context,the relevance-theoretic interpretation of hedges In online communication has the following features when compared with face-to-face communication context.Interpretation of hedges in context of online communication depends entirely on text input and internal cognitive context while in the face-to-face communication context the interpretation of hedges is deeply influenced by nonverbal elements,such as stress,intonation,facial expression and gesture.In addition,in face-to-face communication,hedges serve as informative stimulus points,whose duration of the receiver's attention together with processing effort mainly derives from the speed and frequency of speaker's output while in online context the recipient himself determines his allocation of time and energy to the stimulation duration of hedges and the processing efforts paid in his inferences;(3)In the context of network communication,if studied from the perspective of the Relevance Theory,hedges are all ostensive stimuli.Among them,the modal auxiliary hedges lay attitudinal and emotional foundation for the whole discourse.Adaptors and hedges related to time attract the addressee's attention and narrow the scope of his cognitive context.Furthermore,the use of rounders effectively expands the recipient's cognitive context and plays a vital role in concealing information.Plausibility shield as ostensive stimulus functions to improve the flexibility of the discourse while attribution shield effectively increases the objectivity of discourse and expands the addressee's cognitive context.This study applies the Relevance Theory to the analysis of hedges in the context of network communication,which enriches and develops the research of both the Relevance Theory and hedges by providing new research thoughts and directions.Besides,owing to the increasing popularity of online communication,the study can attract people's attention to the special but widely-existing linguistic phenomenon in online communicative context,hedges for instance.Furthermore,the study assists Internet users with their interpretation of online hedges by presenting in detail the pragmatic functions of different hedges.Lastly,this study can also be utilized as a study of political discourses for further comprehending of the linguistic features Trump's language and his diplomatic strategies.