The Study Of Hedges:From The Perspective Of Pragmatics

The Phenomenon of fuzziness exists objectively and widely in all aspects of human life.Hence, in human languages, there is also a great number of words which express the conceptsthat have not definite boundaries, namely "fuzzy concepts" Although there is a long historythat people pay close attention to fuzziness and study it, the special research about fuzzylanguage just began twenty or thirty years ago. Fuzzy linguistics, as a new discipline, is just adiscipline that studies semantics at the beginning and belongs to a branch of semantics(Quantitative Fuzzy Semantics), its basic theory is "fuzzy sets" which was pointed out byL.A.Zadeh in 1965. However, since there is a large quantity and frequently use of fuzzy wordsin verbal communication, the study of fuzzy language must involve the matter of pragmatics,that is to say, the study of fuzzy language must be analyzed from the perspective ofpragmatics, from the perspective of language using and interpreting, as the indefiniteness of afuzzy word can be decided only if it is interpreted under a specific communicative situation.The goal of this dissertation is to use pragmatic principles to analyze those words whichin fact are the "hedges" to discourses, then to reveal that, in verbal communication, the use ofhedges can help the participants achieve the communicative purpose successfully; the abilityof using strategies for being fuzzy constitutes an important aspect of the communicativecompetence; the appropriate use of hedges can improve verbal communication greatly; andhow to use them appropriately. The author sets forth these viewpoints in five chapters:Chapter One is the introduction. It sketches out the thesis and the plan of thisdissertation. Firstly, it introduces the study and developing situation of fuzziness and fuzzylinguistics, which is the study background of this dissertation. Then, it illustrates throughexamples that hedges are used enormously and frequently in verbal communication andreflect communication greatly; the use of hedges is neither all 揼ood?nor all 揵ad? the matteris that whether hedges can be used appropriately and how to use them appropriately. So thestudy of hedges is a necessary and significant matter.Chapter Two introduces what are hedges (definition, classification and function) andwhy we use hedges (four main reasons). According to Lakoff抯 (1972) definition, hedges arethose words 搘hose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy? Since hedges have thefeature that can make a precise concept fuzzy, hence, in verbal communication, people oftenlike to use some hedges in order to achieve some communicative purposes, such as to avoidbeing arbitrary and more objective or to be more polite. Conversational principles are usuallyobserved, but some times are violated by using hedges. How to explain this situation? InChapter Three, hedges are analyzed under pragmatic principles.Chapter Three uses conversational principles: the Co-operative Principle, the PolitenessPrinciple and the FTA theory to analyze the use of hedges in details. According to Grice抯 Co-operative Principle, in order to ensure the communication go on smoothly and achieve thecommunicative purpose successfully, the participants must cooperate and adhere someconversational principles (Quantity Maxim, Quality Maxim, Relevance Maxim, and MannerMaxim). At the same time, because of the need of communication, the speaker have to usesome hedges which may observe one maxim but violate another. Through examples thedissertation analyzes how hedges are used in four maxims. Another important factor thatreflects the use of hedges is the Politeness Principle. Because the Co-operative Principle cannot explain why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean, the Politenessprinciple rescues the Co-operative Principle and is a necessary complement to the Co-operative principle. The dissertation analyzes the use of hedges in six maxims (Tac...