A Pragmatic Study Of The Vague Language In Business Negotiations

For years pragmatics has been viewed as a branch of linguistics. This notion is challenged by Verschueren, secretary-general of the International Pragmatics Association, who argues in his latest work Understanding Pragmatics that pragmatics is a perspective on language. The investigation of language phenomena should take into account the cognitive, social and cultural forces functioning in the employment and interpretation of language. According to the Theory of Adaptation proposed by Verschueren, linguistic choice is a result of the dynamic interadaptation between contextual correlates and structural objects at various levels of salience.This present study is conducted under the framework and guidelines of Theory of Adaptation with vague language in business negotiations as its research target. The author starts with a literature review on the research of several confusing terms and vagueness. Then the author introduces some important notions and angles of investigation of Adaptation Theory. Next reasons for the existence of vague language in business negotiations and methods to realize vagueness are discussed. The author proceeds with the exploration into the specific contexts in business negotiations. It is observed that vague language is highly adaptable to contexts. Finally the author studies the psychological motivations that partly account for the adoption of vague language. It is shown that the pragmatic functions vague language has can properly serve the negotiators' communicative purposes.The employment of vague language in business negotiations thus is a result of negotiators' deliberate use and the interadaptability between context and structure. The author hopes to offer some clues and inspirations to preliminary students in terms of timing and methods to apply vague language in business negotiations. Another significance of this thesis is that it is expected to offers new evidence to the strong explanatory power of Adaptation Theory.