Analysis Of Vague Expressions In English Political Discourse

Vagueness is an intrinsic nature of language, which can be used by speakers to actualize intended pragmatic effects in communication. Owing to the abundant philosophical studies of vagueness, it is possible to apply this abstract concept to pragmatic study in concrete communication contexts. Much progress has been made in the past years in theoretical research on vagueness as a linguistic phenomenon and its application to the analysis of various discourses.This thesis begins with an introduction to the previous research, especially philosophical studies on vague proposition so as to trace the cradle land where vagueness phenomena came into being. Research in linguistic field is then probed to link the earlier philosophical studies on vagueness with the modern theories. A distinction between three linguistic concepts, fuzziness, vagueness, and ambiguity, is made to help understand the connotation of vagueness. The term"political discourse"is delimited which denotes a large scale of politically related materials, such as speeches, interviews, political talk shows, and public debates.To meet the special political purposes or to satisfy their self-interest, politicians would utter statements which are neither true nor false, or can have indeterminate interpretations. Through the analysis of material collected, this thesis illustrates the linguistic realizations of vagueness in political discourse in two levels, lexical level and syntactic level, and each level is supported by several devices. In public affairs, politicians choose vague strategies to protect them from being wrong in the future, to be polite and to lessen affront, to withhold information, to mitigate one's responsibility, to create an in-group and out-group atmosphere, and to be persuasive.Kerry-Bush presidential debate in 2004 is selected as a case for in-depth study. The two candidates had their particular ways to exert strategies to express vague promises and to give audience vague explanation of the past. They adopted linguistic means to realize vagueness at lexical level and syntactic level, supported by devices as...