On The Generation And Interpretation Of Pragmatic Ambivalence In Diplomatic Discourse

Pragmatic ambivalence is a language phenomenon as well as a communicative strategy motivated by meta-pragmatic awareness. Adopting a qualitative analytical method, the thesis carries out a detailed study of the generation, linguistic realization and interpretation of pragmatic ambivalence in diplomatic discourse based on Verschueren's Adaptation Theory and Sperber & Wilson's Relevance Theory.The thesis holds that pragmatic ambivalence in diplomatic discourse is generated by adaptation to the elements in the mental, social and physical contexts in diplomatic interaction. Specifically, it is generated by adapting to the speaker's own communicative needs, the speaker's assessment of the hearer's communicative needs and the shared communicative needs of relevant sides; by adapting to the diplomacy-specific communicative norms of extreme politeness and the widely acclaimed social values such as euphemism etc.; by adapting to the presence of the participants and non-participants in diplomatic interaction. The use of pragmatic ambivalence serves many diplomatic purposes.The thesis finds out that pragmatic ambivalence can be realized through the indeterminacy at the grammatical-semantic level or through the indeterminacy of illocutionary acts. At the semantic level, it can be realized by the use of general words, fuzzy words, hedges and referential ambiguity. At the syntactic level, it can be realized through syntactic ambiguity, nominalization and passivization and negative sentences etc. It can also be realized by the"checks and balances"of the whole text at cross-textual level and through the indeterminacy of illocutionary acts such as pragmatic multivalence or pragmatic bivalence/plurivalence etc.The thesis tentatively proposes an operational framework for the interpretation of pragmatic ambivalence in diplomatic discourse based on the combination of the two theories. The interpretation is a non-demonstrative inferential process. The process starts with the identification and activation of contextual correlates and formation of contextual assumptions; continues with the decoding of ostensive linguistic stimuli, especially the linguistic devices for the realization of pragmatic ambivalence, and the recovery of the speaker's informative intention; then continues with the interaction between incoming stimuli and existing contextual assumptions, assessment, confirmation or elimination of hypothesis, formation, assessment and confirmation of new hypothesis etc.; and ends with the hearer arriving at the speaker's communicative intention.