The Communicative Function Of Pragmatic Vagueness Realized In The Conversation Of The American Sitcom Friends

It is generally believed that a good use of language should be brief, clear and precise, and vagueness, imprecision and ambiguity should be avoided. However, vagueness and imprecision are very common in everyday conversation due to the lack of conscious planning, which is embodied in the high frequency of hesitations, repetitions and pauses,so the good use of language involves not only precision but also vagueness.Interest in the vagueness of language use has arisen in a number of disciplines. Much of it suggests that vagueness is present in a great deal of language use. In a broad sense, precision is comparative and vagueness is universal. Studies on linguistic vagueness from different angles have developed very quickly in recent years; however, few of them have focused on vagueness in sitcom conversation. Therefore this thesis is to apply pragmatic principles and theories to interpret the occurrence of vague language and reveal its functions in sitcom conversation. This analysis holds that linguistic vagueness is neither"bad"nor"good": what really counts is to use vague language appropriately in the context, which will benefit us to communicate effectively in our daily communication.The very beginning is a brief introduction to the universality of linguistic vagueness. Vagueness exists in both written and oral language, in fact more often in spoken language, especially in everyday conversation, though most speakers are not aware of this.Chapter One introduces the cognition of the nature of vagueness and kinds of historic arguments on the definition of vagueness, which helps readers to form a clear picture of this linguistic attribute. Another main content in this part is the introduction of the pragmatic approach to vague language in everyday conversation. It includes the necessity of studying vagueness and the categories of pragmatic vagueness.Chapter Two introduces the basic research method of this paper. First, it puts forward the research questions, and then it introduces the research design and the analytical tool. The description of the corpus source and specific criteria of labeling the vague language in the corpus are presented in the end.In Chapter Three, the author will try to analyze the vague language as much as possible by using the software antconc3.1.3 as well as by hand labeling.In Chapter Four, the author will illustrate the main functions of the vague language in daily conversation. It covers both the positive functions and the negative functions.In Chapter Five, the last part, the author will draw the conclusion that vague language can make communication smoother and effective as precise language can do under different conditions. Vague language is neither"bad"nor"good", what matters is that vague language is used appropriately.