The Pragmatic Approach To The Study Of Fuzzy Language And The Translation

Nowadays, fuzziness of language, one of the most complicated and perplexing features of natural language, has evoked increasingly interest and endeavor from linguists and many other experts in various fields, which helped to bring about fuzzy linguistics, a boundary disciplinary between linguistics and fuzziology.Generally speaking, the present research into fuzzy language falls into several categories according to different linguistic approaches, that is, from semantic, pragmatic, syntactic and any other point of view. Inevitably, these varied approaches do overlap one another in the course of practical study, just as this thesis, in which the discussions on the pragmatic function of fuzzy language is conducted on no other basis than semantic analysis concerning individual word, phrase or expression.Altogether this thesis is separated into five parts. The first chapter gives, above all, an account of the historical background of fuzzy linguistics and two basic concepts-fuzzy set and hedges with respect to it. Then the Cooperative Principle (CP) and functional equivalence are introduced for later use in the following chapters.The second chapter carries on the job of explaining fuzziness of natural language, intentions of people's use of fuzzy language and several possible classifications of fuzziness, in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of it. The third and the fourth chapters, however, make up the main body of the whole thesis, with detailed statements on the application of the CP to the use fuzzy languages and their translation strategies in practice. In general, the CP is linked to fuzzy language in diverse ways that people adopt to adhere to or violate the four maxims. The informality level of the conversation, the style of theadvertisement and lack of specific information may lead to the use of fuzzy language for the sake of the quantity and quality of the speech. The relevance and manner hedges help the speaker to follow the relation and manner maxims. Meanwhile, fuzzy language may be useful when people are not willing to give sufficient message, or when people intend to convey information beyond the words. The exaggeration of numerical words is a typical example of people's ignorance of the quality maxim. Under certain circumstances, hedges may also enable the hearer to comprehend irrelevant utterances. Euphemism, as a sort of appropriate and fuzzy expression of the offensive and unpleasant words, is just the opposite to the requirement of relation maxim. Finally, the shields are often put into use when people are uncertain about what he is saying and want to mitigate the tone for self-protection.As for the application of the CP to the translation of fuzzy language, the author attempts to figure out three major strategies employed by translators in the ever-changing contexts, all aiming at the achievement of functional equivalence, the feasible norm in the domain of translation.The last chapter, serving as a conclusive part of the thesis as a whole, points out that the CP provides a proper explanation for the frequent appearances of fuzzy languages and their translation strategies. In view of the complexity of language fuzziness, considerable discussions and studies are of great necessity in future, which are bound to cast new light on the research of fuzzy linguistics, pragmatics and translation.