Critical Discourse Analysis Of Political English News From The Perspective Of Pragmatic Vagueness

This thesis is a preliminary attempt to make critical discourse analysis of political English news from the perspective of pragmatic vagueness. It is no denying that the major methodology of CDA is based on Halliday's systematic-functional grammar. However, Critical discourse analysis doesn't provide a ready-made, how-to-do approach in social analysis. Any theory is acceptable if it aims to reveal the relationship between language, power and ideology.Pragmatic vagueness refers to the deliberate use of vague language in verbal communication, which is viewed as a communicative strategy and greatly reflects the speaker's metapragmatic awareness. It is a pervasive language phenomenon in verbal communication, so is in political English news. Its existence in political English news is not accidental but intentional. Through making a critical analysis of news reports of the American media on Iraq war from the perspective of pragmatic vagueness, the thesis not only illustrates linguistic choices at different levels to realize vagueness in political English news, but also investigates the reporter's metapragmatic awareness triggering the choice of this strategy, and finally discloses the ideologies concealed in political English news.The present study aims to provide a new perspective of"seeing through language": to probe into vagueness used in political English news and to explain how language is used by powerful groups to reinforce their political ideologies. Besides, it expects to help readers increase the awareness of how language contributes to the domination of some people by others because political English news is not a value-free reflection of"facts"; it is constructed socially and inevitably influenced by dominant ideologies.