| As an essential property of natural language, fuzziness seems to be a pervasive phenomenon in our language communication. Hedges, as an important component of fuzzy language, have attracted much research interest of many scholars. This thesis intends to make a tentative analysis of motives as well as the functions of the use of hedges in Yang Lan One on One under Verschueren's Adaptation Theory.Hedges used in the TV interviews Yang Lan One on One have been collected in an attempt to analyze this language phenomenon from the perspective of Adaptation Theory, which may offer sound explanation to this phenomenon. According to Verschueren, language use is a process of choice-making to make our language adapt to and comply with the communicative context composed of the mental world, social world and physical world of the utterers. Therefore, the hedges adopted by the interviewer and the interviewee are the result of linguistic choices made by them to adapt to their communicative context.Under the framework of Adaptation Theory and with detailed analysis of hedges in TV interviews, it is concluded that the employment of hedges in TV interview is the result of choice-making of both the interviewer and the interviewee, and in addition, the use of hedges may help to make the expression more concise, and more consistent to the truth, to protect the speakers, and to avoid potential negative outcomes.Through discussion, the author suggests that Verschueren's Adaptation Theory can well explain the linguistic phenomenon of hedges in TV interview, and it provides a new perspective in pragmatic interpretation of language use. |
