On Pragmatic Functions Of Hedges

As one element of fuzzy language, hedges are common and play an important role in human communication. The concepts of hedges and hedging have been in the linguistic literature since the term hedge was first introduced by Lakoff in 1972. Different approaches towards the study of this term have been adopted. Based on the account of relevant literature at home and abroad, however, it is found that little work has been undertaken concerning hedges in Chinese and the research of hedges in the TV interview is rarely undertaken.This thesis makes a detailed investigation into the pragmatic functions hedges perform in the CCTV interview"Tell It Like It Is"within the framework of Brown and Levinson's face theory as well as Grice's co-operative principle. It begins with an introduction to the overview of the studies on hedges at home and abroad, in which the limitations of the research are displayed and the rationale and value of this study are demonstrated. Then we give a brief account of relevant literature in addition to the definitions and classifications of hedges, which lays a foundation for the following analysis. After introducing Brown and Levinson's face theory and discussing how hedges are viewed as an interpersonal politeness strategy, we focus on the pragmatic functions hedges perform in the TV interview"Tell It Like It Is". First and foremost, as an effective strategy of saving face, hedges mainly fulfill three functions, that is, maintaining"one's own face","the other participant's face"and"the audience's face". Brown and Levinson in their face theory, as well as many other scholars, seldom mention the audience's face. But in this study, it is noticed that communicators, during their verbal interaction, especially in such a TV interview, pay much attention to the audience's face. Furthermore, hedges'pragmatic features under the CP are also discussed. Besides, we take a brief quantitative investigation to the principal forms of hedges, their distribution and their frequency in this TV interview. In addition, the limitations of this study and suggestions for further research are presented.The language in"Tell It Like It Is"is typical modern spoken Chinese. A case study of this interview can offer us knowledge of how hedges operate in modern Chinese and thus deepen our...