| The ultimate purpose of numerals is to notify a clear and objective fact. Numericalexpressions in news especially make the readers/listeners feel trustworthy of the news.Nonetheless, numerals denoting vagueness are pervasively occurred in news, thus asystematic study on vague numerals is indispensable in the field of linguistics.The adoption of vague numerals in newspapers owe to the favorable functions of vaguenumerals. Linguists at home and abroad have made abundant researches on the functions ofvague numerals. It is considered as a communicative strategy to adopt vague numerals innewspapers. A sense of uncertainty of the entity can be denoted only by a help of vaguelanguage in some circumstances. A further understanding on the nature of vague numeralscannot be achieved unless a study on the mutual understanding of vague numerals betweenthe writer and the reader is carried out. For instance, how mutual understandings on vaguenumerals are processed successfully in a mute conversation, i.e. through the platform ofnewspaper? Are there communicative failures occurred in mutual understanding between thewriter and the reader, if there are, then what are they? What is the cognitive basis of asuccessful VN communicating, in other words, why a successful mutual understanding can beachieved? This thesis is intending to deal with the three problems one by one, by means of aresearch on vague numerals occurred in47pieces of news data.It is essentially a good way to understand vague numerals in news from the viewpoint ofcognitive-pragmatics. A cognitively pragmatic analysis and research is focusing on petrifiedknowledge in human being’s mind, which is developed from daily pragmatic experiences,thus it is more systematic and feasible. The two principles that guide the theory are cognitiveprinciple and communicative principle. Guided by the two core principles of cognitivepragmatics, the theoretical framework of this thesis are consistent with the themesconstituting cognitive pragmatics: a. to interpret mutual understanding on vague numeralsunder a guidance of relevance theory, which is the core theory of cognitive pragmatics; b. toanalyze mental processing of vague numerals by help of cognitive context, which is the basictheory of cognitive pragmatics.Based on a detailed perception, comprehension and interpretation of vague numerals innon-verbal communication, it is hopefully that the thesis can aid the news writer tomanipulate the expressing ways of numerals, the news readers having less obstruction ofunderstanding the writer’s intentions that underlying the form of vague numerals. |
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