Fuzziness In Pride And Prejudice——a Study From Pragmatic Perspective

This thesis focuses on the detailed analysis of conversational implicature from examples in Pride and Prejudice and its pragmatic functions under the guidance of the cooperative principle and fuzzy linguistics.Since a professor L.A.Zadeh from the University of California built up the "fuzzy sets" theory in1965, a series of new subjects came into bloom overseas. The foreign linguists put emphasis on the study of fuzziness in the late1970s. Research on it in China was started by Professor Wu Tieping’s Fuzzy Linguistics published in1999, which gave detailed analysis on the fuzzy words and semantics. Fuzziness, as a branch of frontier science, has been widely applied in different fields. However, literary works are often analyzed from literature criticism. Research on fuzzy language in literary works from pragmatic perspective needs more efforts. So this thesis is to apply pragmatic theories to interpret fuzzy language and reveal its functions in literary works.Fuzziness is one of essential property of language. People not only use exact words in communication, but fuzzy words whose meanings are not accurate or clear to gain certain pragmatic effects. When it is used in novels, it can achieve the implication of literary words and convey the beauty of the text. Jane Austen is a great woman writer in the English literature history; Pride and Prejudice is her masterpiece, in which it vividly describes different marriages from middle-class families in the18th century of England. In her novel, there is full of dialogues which reveal character personalities, develop the plot and create comedic atmosphere. Austen is very skillful in choosing smart and humorous words, and even fuzzy words to realize some pragmatic functions, which readers may understand the novel better. Based on the cooperative principle, this thesis dares to analyze fuzziness that occurs within text itself and explore the corresponding pragmatic functions. Thus, from the point view of pragmatics, a detailed study of fuzzy language is of great importance in properly understanding literary works.The main body of this thesis is the illustration of how conversational implicature is produced from angle of fuzziness. Theories about Grice’s cooperative principle and fuzzy linguistics are carefully reviewed to provide a clear theoretical tool for analyzing the target text. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is chosen as the target text, and examples are carefully selected according to categories of fuzzy language and analyzed by flouting four maxims of the cooperative principle. In a word, the innovation of this thesis lies in the study of application of fuzzy language into literary works combined with Grice’s cooperative principle, which readers could appreciate literary works from a new angle. Meanwhile it proves the feasibility of pragmatic analysis of literary works from angle of fuzzy linguistics.The structure of this thesis consists of five parts. The first part is Introduction, the second part is Literature Review, the third part is Fuzzy Language Used in Pride and Prejudice, the fourth part is Pragmatic Analysis of Fuzzy language in Pride and Prejudice, and the final part is Conclusion.