A Study Of Vague Language In English Business Correspondence

Study on vagueness has been attached much attention in various fields in recent years, and many linguists have work on vague language for decades. Most study of vague language mainly discusses its pragmatic functions in specific register by Relevance Theory and Adaptation Theory. The present research has been focused on the employment of vague language in English business correspondence through a qualitative approach with eighteen English business correspondences collected. In light of Channell's and Kempson's Vague Language Theory, Cooperative Principle(CP) and Politeness Principle(PP), the discussion is conducted based on the quantitative data drawn from qualitative analysis.The results indicate that the employment frequency of vague language in different types of business correspondence takes on different looks because of the various writing purposes; in the respect of vague language realization, vague additive and vague word are widely employed in business correspondence, while vagueness by implicature is rarely seen. It also discovers that to make the words more persuasive and more polite is the main pragmatic function of vague language in business discourse, which could be explained by CP and PP; the thematic feature of vague language is that a "we" thematic structure is prevalent in business correspondence when expressing vagueness. It is hoped that the study can provide help to business person, business English teacher and vague language learners.