A Study On Vague Rhetoric In English Sports News

As the result of the development of fuzzy set theory proposed by L.A. Zadeh, modern linguists corrected their partiality of viewing precision as the unique principle in verbal communication, and the fuzzy set theory inspired them to probe into the uncertainty in language, thus sprang up the new science — fuzzy linguistics, the study of which reveals that vagueness is an intrinsic attribute of language. The appropriate dosage of vagueness in language will not hinder successful communication between human beings, but improve it. The achievements in fuzzy linguistics shed light on modern rhetoric and provide a new perspective for its further investigation. Vague rhetoric is a science based on fuzzy set theory with its target to improve expressive effect in human communication.Built on the theoretical reflections of fuzzy set theory and systematical review on the researches in the area of vague rhetoric in the introductory part, this paper explores the constitution of vague rhetoric in English sports news at phonetic, lexical, and syntactical levels, for the special communicative functions of sports and the increasing importance of news reading in the information explosion age. Then this paper goes on to conduct a descriptive study on the characteristics of vague rhetoric applied in English sports news. Findings of the study show that the occurrence of vague rhetoric in different parts of sports news is selective. The choice of words in headline is usually more vague than that in other parts of sports news. And the vague rhetoric utilized in sports news is usually accompanied by staleness. In light of the features of English sports news, this paper furthers its study with detailed analyses in an attempt to find the rich values of vague rhetoric in English sports news. Adding vividness and liveliness, maintaining reporting objectivity, satisfying the readers' new demands for more entertaining reports, and mitigating the negative sides in sports, such as jingoism and sexual discrimination, are the four major factors accounting for the utilization of vague rhetoric in sports news. The paper concludes with a brief summary of the study, in which major findings are pointed out with the author's hope to inspire readers for further studies on this subject and its application in related areas.