Pragmatic Analysis On Hedges And Their Interpersonal Functions

People’s life is connected with the phenomenon of fuzziness, even we can say thatthe phenomenon of fuzziness exists objectively and widely in all aspects of human life,and in the field of human language, there is no exception. As a matter of fact, there are agreat number of words that can express the concepts which are not definite boundaries,which can be called “fuzzy concepts”. In1965, Zadeh, who is a professor of CaliforniaUniversity, published his paper “Fuzzy Sets”, which marked the appearance of this newbranch of linguistics—fuzzy linguistics or fuzziology. Actually, there is a long historyconcerning research on the phenomenon of fuzziness, whereas, they paid their attentionto the vague language for not so long time, it is just two or three decades or so. Becausevague language is a new branch of fuzzy linguistics, people just concentrate theirinterests on the language categorization of the concept, which is a branch of Semantics,and certainly, this is based on the “Fuzzy Sets” put forward by Zadeh. Latter, linguistsrealized gradually that vague language is used frequently in the process ofcommunication; therefore, it is indispensable to study concerning the vague language.Hedge is a crucial member of vague language, and it is taken advantage ofextremely frequently in the course of communication. It plays an important role in thecommunication; as a result, we can not ignore their effects. The concept of hedge orhedging was first put forward by Lakoff, who described the hedge as follows “wordswhose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy” in her paper”Hedges: A Study inMeaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concept”. Hedge is a very crucial strategywhich is frequently employed both in verbal and written English. In1970s, every aspectof the hedges has attracted a great number of linguists or scholars abroad; however, thereis not such deep exploration and research on the hedges at home.In academia, the hedge is categorization from the perspective of Semantics totally atthe beginning of the hedges proposed. When the hedges are used to describe one object,event or some other things, hedges can extend or narrow the scope of the category theymodify. In recent years, along with the deepening of study on vagueness of language, thestudy of hedges in pragmatics also becomes one of the most appealing topics. The hedgescan improve the communicational competence of the speakers if they are studied fromthis perspective of pragmatics. Since the1980s, the research of hedges has researched from the semantic field to pragmatic and textual field.As a matter of fact, some certain people barely take advantage of the hedges incommunication; even they don’t have a command of the functions of the hedges, then inthe process of communication, will make the others embarrassed, inharmonious,awkward, and therefore, the communication fails in a natural way. According to theresearch of the hedges, we can get a better command of the functions of hedges, andunderstand how to use the hedges to make our own feeling more fully, more appropriate,cut down the mistakes, and thus improve the communicative competence and make thecommunication more objective, flexible. Also the hedges can change the originalmeaning of the proposition to some extent, hide or avoid some sensitive topics.Sometimes, the hedges will be unsuccessful in communication, and meanwhile producesome mistakes, but if we pay enough attention to the contexts as well as take thedifferences of various languages into account, the mistakes can be overcome.The thesis mainly based on several principles in linguistics, Politeness Principle,Conversational Implicature, Conversational Principle, FTA Theory, Cooperative Principleincluded, analyzed the functions of hedges in communication from the perspective ofpragmatics, and then the user of language can employ the hedges proficiently, thecommunication will be more successful. Meanwhile, the teacher can enhance theirpedagogical level in the course of teaching, and help the foreign language learners tomaster the foreign language much better.The thesis comprises three parts: introduction, the main body and a conclusion. Itsmain contents are as follows:The first part is introduction, which mainly discusses the emergence of the hedges,and then introduces some concepts of several linguists at home and abroad. Thus theconcept of hedges can be put forward. The hedge is a very important member of thevague language; also the opinions of various linguists vary. They have their ownunderstanding and elaboration. In the last of the introduction, the pragmatic functions ofhedges are discussed.The second part is main body, which is comprised by three chapters:Chapter1combines the domestic and foreign situations, and first of all, it describesthe development of the hedges, and different classifications of different linguists and the classification acknowledged generally, and then discuss the functions of hedges from twoaspects, that is semantic functions and pragmatic functions. The main point is pragmaticfunction. If the hedges are used in communication appropriately, the understanding of theparticipants will be more polite, more successful, and more natural.Chapter2is emphasized in this thesis. It mainly analyzes the interpersonal functionsof hedges from the perspective of pragmatics. This chapter bases on several principles,including Grice’s Conversation Implicature and Cooperative Principle, Brown andLevinson and Leech’s Politeness Principle, and at the same time, a large number ofexamples are demonstrated in the thesis and then some conclusions are achieved: thehedges can help the speaker avoid some unnecessary information, and thus promote thecommunicational efficiency, and meanwhile make the verbal communication moresuccessful in a special way; the hedges regarded as a self-protection strategy, negativestrategy, positive strategy can play a very crucial role in the communication; in writtenlanguage, the hedges also play a discourse role in different contexts.Chapter3is the last part of the main body, which mainly discusses the implicationsof hedges from the perspective of pragmatics, as well as some problems in thepedagogical field and solutions. The research of the hedges is extremely instructive to thefield of teaching. If foreign language teacher uses the hedges appropriately in the class, itwill not only enhance the communicational competence of the foreign language learners,but also improve their own teaching level.The last part of the thesis is conclusion, which makes a summary to the precedingknowledge. According to the exploration and research of the hedges, we can have a bettercommand of the functions of hedges and the speakers or the writers are aware of howthey express their feelings more fully, more appropriately, and cut down languagemistakes, improve the communicative competence.The exploration and research of hedges is positive to communication. Employmentof hedges can improve the effect and efficiency of language, flexibility of hedges can oflanguage, and then the utterance will be more natural, polite. It will protect the speaker’sfaces; meanwhile, the communication made by participants will be manageable. Thestudy of hedges have two aspects of meanings: there exists a certain theoreticalsignificance for semantic and pragmatic research in the future, and the second one, it is very practical to make use of hedges effectively and appropriately in verbalcommunication.