A Study On The Generation Mechanism Of Vagueness

For decades, exactness in language and precision in diction have been regarded asindispensable features of presidential inaugural addresses. In general, people think that deliverersshould avoid being ambiguous; as a result, the study on vagueness in presidential inauguraladdresses is in a state of negligence. In fact, the use of vagueness is a pragmatic strategy and canbe seen almost everywhere in our lives, which exerts irreplaceable roles. In many cases, thepresidents employ vagueness in their inaugural addresses consciously or unconsciously to conveytheir advocacy and political strategies. On the one hand, it can lift the flexibility of language,making utterances implicit and polite. On the other hand, it can achieve the goal of self-protection,minimizing the possibility of criticism and suspicion from outer media. The frequent appearanceof vagueness in them also attributes to the special significant role that vagueness plays.Cognitive linguists put forward the AR Model after analyzing Sperber and Wilson’s RT andVerschueren’s latest pragmatic theory-AT. But this model still has some weaknesses and can befurther optimized, so a new AR+Model is proposed. Then, the model is applied to the generationprocess of vagueness in American presidential inaugural addresses (APIAs), which is the noveltyof the thesis.The present study is conducted from cognitive pragmatics, based on the qualitative-analysisapproach, taking APIAs for example to discuss the generation mechanism of vagueness byemploying the AR+Model. Under this model, the generation mechanism of vagueness is: thespeaker first forms relevance hypotheses based on contextual correlates; then, the speaker adaptsto the hearer’s three worlds (physical world, social world, and mental world) on the basis ofrelevance hypotheses; last, the speaker makes optimal relevance choice and chooses the forms ofutterances. The study not only sheds light on the generation mechanism of vagueness in APIAs,thus developing the studies on vagueness, it also justifies the feasibility and explanatory power ofthe AR+Model. In addition, the materials used in the thesis are APIAs, so they can familiarize thereader of American presidents’ political strategies and ambitions, thus helping them to have abetter understanding of American politics.