An Analysis Of Pragmatic Functions Of Hedges From The Perspective Of Contextual Adaptation

Hedges and hedging, in the family of vague languages, are the most typical class which has been widely used and is playing an irreplaceable role in speech communications. Since the concept was first introduced by Lakoff in 1972 based on the studies of fuzzy langauge, it was brought into linguistic research areas. Overviewing the current studies on hedges both at home and abroad, the author finds that there are a few studies on hedges in different discourses, such as in the academic, the media, the political and the advertising, etc.. However, few studies on hedges in sales discourse, especially in insurance sales discourse are undertaken.In view of the above, in this thesis, the author intends to take 11 insurance sales conversations from the book, Golden Sayings for Insurance, which is a collection for actual cases in insurance sales, and 9 recordings of the dialogues between the salespersons and the customers as data to analyze hedges from a new perspective. Since insurance sales discourse which is a kind of typical communicatvie context has the obvious features of the interactions between the salespersons and the customers, and in which a large number of hedges are often used by salespersons, context must be taken into consideration when researchers studying hedges in insurance sales discourse. According to Verschueren(2000), using language consists of the continuous making of linguistic choices, while the choice-making must adapt to the immediate context and the context is generated dynamically. Verschueren's context consists of communicative context and linguistic context, and the latter includes four ingredients, namely, language users, the mental world, the social world and the physical world (in Figure 2.1). Under the theory of contextual adaptation, this thesis is devoted to illustrate why hedges are often used and what pragmatic functions have been fullfilled in insurance sales discourse and to discuss the relationship between the theory and the strategies of using hedges in insurance sales as well.With the detailed analysis of the collected data, the following conclusions are drawn. Firstly, it is essential for sales persons to use hedges in insurance sales discourse and hedges are used more frequently in insurance sales discourse. Secondly, salespersons'making choice of hedges is an adaptation to communicative context dynamically, namely, adaptation to the mental world, including both the sales persons'and the customers'mental world; adaptation to the social world, including both the social conventions and the social positions of the language users; adaptation to the physical world, both in content and in form. And so is customers'interpretation. Thirdly, with the analysis of using hedges as a purpose and a result of adaptation to the context, the pragmatic functions of hedges in insurance sales discourse are summarized, such as being cooperative, being polite and saving face etc., which are mainly concerned with CP (Cooperative Principle), PP (Politeness Principle) and FTA (Face-threatening Act).Although this study is only a case study on hedges in insurance sales discourse, the conclusion of the analysis will further prove the practical appllication of the theory of contextual adaptation. Moreover, it will also provide insurance sales persons with advices of using hedges properly and strategically to realize the purpose of communication or sales.