Function And Application Of Vagueness In Political Diplomatic Language

Much progress has been made in the past years in the areas of vagueness study and its application to various styles. However, little work has been done in the interrelationship between vagueness and political diplomatic language. In the current dissertation the author focuses on a number of selected political diplomatic language materials to study the linguistic realization of vagueness in diplomacy and decode what diplomats mean by using vague language purposefully. To address this topic, both qualitative and descriptive methods are employed for the research work.The dissertation begins with a general introduction to the previous research, and traces the reasons for the existence of vagueness from different angles especially from psychological and cognitive theories. A distinction between the four linguistic concepts of fuzziness, vagueness, generality and ambiguity is made to help understand vagueness. The categorization theory and Zadeh's membership function are introduced to lay a foundation for the following discussions.In this thesis, the use of "diplomacy" is confined to political diplomacy only, and "diplomatic language" is limited to oral and written practice in negotiations, speeches, addresses, telephones, telegraphs, agreements, treaties and even letters between diplomats or government leaders in dealing with political foreign affairs. The view that diplomatic language can be vague holds that there are statements which are neither true nor false, or can have indeterminate interpretations, to meet the special purpose of diplomacy or to satisfy their national interests. The linguistic occurrence of vagueness is realized on lexical, syntactical and discourse level, which is based on the analysis of materials collected from internets, books, some newspapers, etc. From the linguistic realization of vagueness, the author tries to find some rules governing speaking and reveal the special use of vague words or sentences in specific situations.Language is a communicative tool which has its function. In diplomatic affairs, spokesman chooses vague strategies to show politeness, to create a harmoniousatmosphere, to be euphemistic and self-protecting, to be flexible and to be tactful. Whatever form it assumes, spoken or written, vagueness is deliberately used to perform one or more of the above-mentioned. In the final analysis, the author believes that diplomats use vague language to serve their own national interests. For this special purpose they will not always express their opinions directly, nor to take a stance definitely.After the comprehensive overview of the vagueness used in diplomacy, the author selects Taiwan Issue as a case study. The American government always adopts a vague strategy when facing Taiwan issue with regard to Taiwan status or its security commitment on Taiwan. The author demonstrates the linguistic vagueness on lexical, syntactic, and discourse level to discover the self-contradictory and two-faceted nature of the American government. The materials to be studied come from the Sino-American communiques, joint statements, Taiwan Relations Act, Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, spokesmen's speeches, etc.The special contribution of the dissertation is to employ the membership function [0, 1] to illustrate the subtle changes in the relationship between China and US. The three diagrams in the dissertation show that when the membership function is low(toward 0), America's inclination is toward Taiwan, and the Sino-American relationship is in a critical way at that time; when the membership function is high(toward 1), the relationship between America and China is in a good condition. From the changing membership functions, the author has several findings, one being the never-changing vague language, one being the ever-changing Sino-American relations, and another being the changing degree of vagueness under the influence of changing contexts or national interests.