Analyses Of Hedges In Linguistic Communication

The phenomenon of fuzziness exists objectively and widely in all aspects of human life. Hence, in human languages, there are a great number of words which express the concepts that have not definite boundaries, namely "fuzzy concepts". Although there is a long history that people pay close attention to fuzziness, the special research about fuzzy language just began twenty or thirty years ago. Fuzzy linguistics, as a new discipline, is just a discipline that studies semantics at the beginning and belongs to a branch of semantics ("Quantitative Fuzzy Semantics" as Zadeh put it). Its basic theory is "fuzzy sets" which was pointed out by L.A. Zadeh in 1965. Although there is a large quantity and frequent use of fuzzy words in verbal communication, the study of fuzzy language in linguistic communication is a relatively ignored area. Only in the mid-1980s, professor He Ziran gave a first investigation into the function of hedges in the pragmatic perspective; then Yu Dongming and other linguists have paid attention to the area of fuzziness.The goal of this dissertation is to use pragmatic principles to analyze those words which in fact are the "hedges" to discourses, then to reveal that, in verbal communication, the use of hedges can help the participants achieve the communicative purpose successfully, the appropriate use of hedges can improve verbal communication greatly; what roles hedges play in communication; and how they are used appropriately. These viewpoints are set forth in five chapters:Chapter One is an introduction. It sketches out the thesis and the plan of this dissertation. Firstly, it examines the rising and developing of fuzzy linguistics, which is the background of this dissertation. Then, it describes hedges as one aspect of fuzziness and their effects in linguistic communication. The use of hedges is neither all "good" nor all "bad". What it counts is that whether hedges can be used appropriately and how they are used appropriately. So the study of hedges is a necessary and significant matter.Chapter Two surveys the study of hedges. Zadeh, Lakoff and Wu Tieping's study are the main concern. Zadeh's fuzzy set theory is essentially quoted in interpreting fuzzy language. His fuzzy-set-interpretation of linguistic hedges offers mathematical calculation of hedges. Then Lakoff s semantic interpretation of linguistic hedges interprets hedges in the perspective of semantics at the same time of accepting Zadeh's fuzzy set theory. Wu Tieping is the first person to introduce Zadeh's fuzzy set theory into China, and he studies hedges in the perspective of grammar and gives his classification of hedges. Hedges exist widely in English and Chinese. It may be analyzed in different ways. Their meaning is the most explicit only if they are used. Therefore, the following chapter will explain them according to their function in linguistic communication.Chapter Three analyzes the classification of hedges in a semantic way. In English and Chinese, there are various kinds of words and sentence patterns which can function as hedges. This dissertation, however, only focuses on adverbs and prepositional phrases, for they form the biggest part of hedges. Grammatically, some hedges may modify the whole clause or sentence, they belong to Sentence hedges; others may modify an individual element of a clause, they belong to Element hedges. Whether they modify a sentence or an element, they have their own semantic paraphrase. Sentence hedges can be classified into three groups: (a) Attitude which indicates the speaker's attitude to what he /she is saying, (b) Viewpoint which states the speaker's field of reference, and (c) Courtesy which includes the small group of adverbs such as "kindly", "graciously", "please", expressing a formal politeness.Element hedges have more complicated functions, which may be classified into three large groups: (a) Intensifying which does not refer only to means whereby an INCREASE in intensification is expressed but rather, a point on an abstractly conceived intensity scale, and the p...