| Since the concept and theory of fuzziness was proposed in 1965, people have done much systematic descriptive study on vague language, especially on the aspect of semantics. But little interpretive study on the same topic has been seen until now. Written business discourse has always been requiring clear and concrete language, so the study of vague language in the discourse has long been neglected.Starting for the above reasons, the present study has centered its attention on the employment of vague language in written business discourse with the purpose of exploring the following three problems:A. When do people use vague language in written business discourse?B. Why do people use vague language in written business discourse?C. Why does vague language in written business discourse possibly lead to smooth business communication?Based on the definition and delimitation of vague language in the present study and the analysis of the data from the articles or books on business communication and correspondence, it is found that the employment of vague language in written business discourse has its own specific characteristics. It can be objectively said to some extent that vague language is one indicator of business letter types, i.e. the employment frequency of vague language can represent more or less business letter types. The difference of employment frequency is mainly decided by the different writing purposes, that is, what the addresser wants to achieve through writing business letters. The specific contexts of using vague language in written business discourse are generally concluded into two types: a. when the addresser makes requests to the addressee; b. when the addresser makes requests to himself.As to the reason why the addresser of business letters sometimes uses vague language, it has been assumed that it is because vague language can bring out certain pragmatic function to help to achieve certain communicative intention. Through data analysis of business letters, the present study has proposed that vague language has three pragmatic functions in written business discourse: a. enhancing the flexibility of the business language; b. improving the appropriateness of the business language;c. creating special pragmatic effects.It has been suggested that written business discourse usually represents an interactional dynamic process in which interpersonal adaptation is involved. With regard to vague language, its employment is constrained by a variety of factors for certain communicative effect, politeness effect, for instance, is one major controlling element taken into consideration. While at the same time from a cognitive perspective, there are not any inherently polite linguistic forms. The politeness effect or impoliteness effect is the result of computing linguistic forms and the contexts in which they are attached. The addresser's using vague language in written business discourse is indirectly motivated by politeness. However, the addresser's direct motivation or ultimate purpose is not to communicate politeness only but to make the addressee realize his communicative intentions, that is, to achieve contextual effect, which is the requirement of Relevance Theory.Therefore, by using vague language the addresser will not necessarily mislead the addressee in spite of the referential uncertainty of vague language. To some extent, it can be said that the addresser's employing vague language is not to convey its meaning (Actually it is not possible to derive exact meaning from vague language.) but to imply the intention behind. Communicative effect and intention are the essential rules of employing vague language in written business discourse.Although some limitations can be found, the present study necessarily has its important implications, such as for foreign language teaching which may lead students to pay attention to and learn to use vague language, since no pioneering attempt from the pragmatic perspective has been found with focus upon such pervasive phenomenon in writt... |
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