| As a research area in the study of vague language, hedging in discourse was first analyzed by G. Lakoff in 1972. Fraser, Brown & Levinson, Leech, Hübler, Rosch, Myers, etc. analyze hedges from different aspects. Scholars in our country have also done some research on some functions of hedges since the 1980s. The study of hedges in news especially in economic news has not been drawn much attention from researchers and very few articles can be found concerning this study.Hedging is a phenomenon of the vagueness in language. After analyzing the factors causing the vagueness of language, this thesis introduces different classifications of hedges, that is, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic classifications of hedges. According to Prince et al. (1982), from a pragmatic perspective, there are two types of hedges: approximators and shields, and their difference lies in whether they affect the truth-value conditions of propositions. Then, Prince and his colleagues subdivide approximators and shields: approximators can be subdivided into two types, that is, adaptors and rounders; shields can be further classified into plausibility shields and attribution shields. This thesis also presents the four semantic features of hedges from a pragmatic perspective: cancellability, markedness, indefiniteness and indirectness.As a form of mass media, news has an important position in people's daily life. The traditional methods of news reporting stress the importance of being accurate and precise, and thus come the "ABC" (accuracy, brevity, clarity) principle of news reporting. It requests accuracy and does not permit the existence of untrue statements. Will news allow hedges, a kind of vagueness, to exist in it? The answer is positive. Through analyzing economic news chosen from The USA Today, this thesis reveals that despite a widely held belief that economic news is a series of impersonal statements of facts and figures, which add up to the truth, hedges are abundant in economic news and play a crucial role in news reporting. Lacking information, needing no specific information, to avoid absoluteness and arbitrariness, to be objective, to be timely, to be brief and to add vividness and liveliness are the reasons for the inevitability of the presence of hedges in economic news. Lastly, the pragmatic analysis of hedges in economic news is conducted on the basis of the four theories in pragmatics: Cooperative Principle, Relevance Theory, Politeness Theory and Speech Act Theory. After a pragmatic analysis of hedges in economic news, this thesis states that appropriate use of hedges can fulfill the pragmatic functions of increasing credibility, avoiding giving details, enhancing self-protecting, achieving politeness and creating persuasive effect.Therefore, economic news not only permits the use or presence of hedges but also relies on them to reflect the truthfulness, objectivity and timeliness. Making an all-around and deep exploration of hedges in economic news not only promotes the research of hedges but also makes contributions to pragmatics.
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