A Study Of Pragmatic Vagueness In Business Negotiation

Vagueness is one of the most essential properties of language. It is universal in language usage. With the publication of "Fuzzy Sets" written by Zadeh in1965, numerous researchers devoted themselves to the study of vague language from different angles, especially semantically. However, pragmatic vagueness in business negotiation hasn’t receive due attention and needs further study.Business negotiation is very complicated, which has a high requirement for language. Usually, people believe that language used in business negotiation should be precise and clear, therefore, the pragmatic study of vague language in business negotiation has been ignored. As a matter of fact, vagueness is applied to the business negotiation widely. The study of vagueness in business negotiation is deserving attention. With the globalization of economy and China’s entering into the WTO successfully, business negotiation is gaining popularity in China. The competition in world market is becoming fiercer and fiercer. Therefore, more and more people pay attention to the way how people negotiate in English, and how to effect business communication successfully.This thesis is to stress the vagueness in business negotiation from pragmatic perspective, and attract people’s attention to the usage of vagueness in business negotiation and give them a better knowledge of vague language in order to negotiate successfully. Thus, it is necessary to carry on the present study on vague language and its functions in business negotiations.Based on real examples and relevant principles, such as Cooperative Principle and face theory, the present study is to manifest that vague language is used to achieve certain communicative purposes.In chapter1, this thesis briefly introduces the study of vagueness, and its significance, research method and the framework of the thesis.Chapter2focuses on the theoretical background of vagueness both at home and abroad, and the relationship between vague language and business negotiation.Chapter3presents a pragmatic study of vague language by introducing vagueness within Politeness Principle, Cooperative Principle and face theory.Chapter4analyzes the realization of vagueness in business negotiation and its pragmatic functions. The positive functions and negative functions of vague language are discussed respectively in order to call business English users’ attention to employing vague language properly.The last chapter makes a conclusion of the thesis by presenting the major findings, the limitations of the present study, suggestions for further study are also offered.The study strives to make a specific study of the pragmatic vagueness in business negotiations, and help negotiators to communicate effectively and achieve their purpose successfully.