A Study Of Vagueness In English Language Teaching From The Perspective Of Pragmatic Functions

Vagueness, one of the intrinsic properties of natural languages, is a linguistic phenomenon which widely exists in the communication of human languages, and of course there is also no exception about it in English Language Teaching.Edified by vague language, L.A.Zadeh, an American scholar, set up his Fuzzy sets in 1965. Vague linguistics is a new branch which arose in the research of the application of Fuzzy sets and has provided a new studying approach to linguistics.In 1970s, it was professor Wu Tieping who first introduced fuzzy theory into China. However, a closer look at the previous studies reveals that both Wu Tieping and other relevant language researchers mainly investigate vague language from the perspective of semantics. Thanks to the development of pragmantics, a firm theory base has been set up to reexamine the vague language. Besides, so far more effort has been made on the theoretical study of vagueness in languages but quite less on that in English Language Teaching. In contrast to the traditional views, the present study of vague language is not just for theorization but for application. Accordingly, both pragmatic perspective and application study are the two novelties of the thesis.Based on previous studies, the present research makes a qualitative analysis of various language vagueness phenomena existing in the whole process of ELT, and illustrates the implications of language vagueness on English Language Teaching, which will promote the teachers' teaching skills, and finally increase the quality of English Language Teaching.This thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter One is the introduction, which briefly introduces vague language, a very common language phenomenon widely used in different fields. Next, the author briefly introduces the contributions and limitations of previous researches. Then the research objectives, significance and method are stated.Chapter Two goes to the literature review. On the basis of respective analysis of previous researches in language vagueness, the author specifies the notions of two terms: language vagueness and its pragmatic functions. Chapter Three earnestly analyzes various language vagueness phenomena existing in the whole process of ELT, such as vagueness in phonetics, in lexics, in literature works, etc, aiming to arouse the teachers's awareness of the fact that they should pay great premium on the vagueness phenomena existing in ELT.Based on the analysis of Chapter Three, Chapter Four further clarifies the implications of language vagueness in English Language Teaching which will benefit both teachers and students. On the one hand, by employing vague language in class, teachers could activate the atmosphere; on the other hand, by understanding and mastering vague language, students' English learning scores and ability to appreciate literary works will be enhanced. In the end, the author makes a questionnare research on vague language and its pragmatic functions in order to examine the importance of the knowledge of pragmatics in studying English. The analysis shows that students with higher results in the questionnaire later get higher marks in TEM-4. Accordingly, the questionnaire research proves that the knowledge of use of vague language has a promoting role in raising the students' studying results.Finally, the thesis draws a conclusion, including the major findings and significance of the present research, followed by its limitations and some suggestions for further research.In a word, this research analyzes the vague language phenomena existing in the whole process of English Language Teaching from a pragmatic perspective, which is regarded as a new trial and both theoretically and pragmatically significant. The research indicates that vague language theory is a quite applicable one to analyze the various language vagueness phenomena existing in ELT; and that by using vague language will benefit both teachers and students in their teaching and learning.