An Adaptive Approach To The Hedges In English News Reporting

Fuzziness is one essential feature of natural language and hedges areconsidered as the most typical fuzzy language. Researches on hedges have beencarried out from various perspectives, mainly from that of Grice’s CooperativePrinciple, Leech’s Politeness Principle, and Wilson’s Relative Principle. However, asfar as we know, little research on hedges has been done with the help of Verschueren’sAdaptation Theory. It is well-known that news plays an important role in people’sdaily life and news reporting should be accurate, brief and objective. However, thesespecial requirements of news reporting do not deny the existence of hedges in newslanguage. Actually, hedges are widely employed in news reporting and they performparticular functions.The present study aims to answer the following research questions:1) Whatkinds of hedges are commonly used in English news reporting?2) How does the useof hedges in English news reporting adapt to the mental world, physical world andsocial world?3) What are the pragmatic functions of hedges in news reporting?Quantitative, qualitative and descriptive methods are employed in the presentresearch to analyze45specific news items selected from authoritative English newswebsites. The theoretical framework of the study is Adaptation Theory.The major findings of the study are:1) A variety of hedges are employed inEnglish news reporting and all types of hedges could be applied in English newsreporting. The most favored type of hedges in English news reporting is attributionshields.2) Hedges in English news reporting adapt to the mental world, physicalworld and social world well.3) Hedges in English news reporting perform certainpragmatic functions.