Fuzzy Rhetoric And Its Pragmatic Functions

Since the proposal of the "Fuzzy Set Theory"by L.A. Zadeh, fuzziness, originally an idea in mathematics, has been applied to the study of linguistics. Fuzziness is an intrinsic attribute of language without which the range of communication would be severely restricted. The fuzziness in language and its related branches have been probed by many researchers at home and abroad. However, up till now, few deeper and more comprehensive studies have been made on the communicative functions of the appropriate use of fuzzy rhetoric. It is a promising attempt to probe the pragmatic functions of fuzzy rhetoric based on the Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle. This thesis, therefore, based on the previous studies and the two pragmatic principles, has centered its attention on the employment of various fuzzy rhetorical devices from the angle of pragmatics. After a general introduction to the research done on fuzziness, Chapter One begins with an elaboration of some historic arguments on the definition and the source of fuzziness, followed by a distinction between the four linguistic concepts of fuzziness, vagueness, generality and ambiguity, and finally arrives at a working definition for fuzzy rhetoric. Chapter Two is devoted to the formation of fuzzy rhetoric from eight different categories at both semantic and syntactic levels. With its semantic indeterminacy, fuzzy rhetoric is often pragmatically justified to bring about special effects. Based on the Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle, Chapter Three analyses the adoption of fuzzy rhetoric to realize different pragmatic functions. It can be concluded from the pragmatic study that fuzzy rhetoric enables the speaker either to observe or to violate the maxims of the CP and the PP, thus achieving different pragmatic functions. The thesis concludes with a brief summary of the study in which major findings together with the limitations are pointed out with some implications for further studies on this subject and its application in related areas.