A Study On Pragmatic Vagueness In Diplomatic Language From The Perspective Of The Adaptation-Relevance Theory

Diplomatic language plays an important role in the diplomatic activities. It is frequentlyused to announce declaration, answer sensitive questions and lessen nervous atmosphere. As atool of diplomacy, the remarkable feature of diplomatic language is the use of pragmaticvagueness strategy. Vagueness is a common language phenomenon and communicativestrategy. With the feature of terseness, flexibility and generality, vagueness can makediplomatic language take effective role.For a long time, the previous theories employed to analyze vagueness are restricted tostylistics and semantics, few of which analyze diplomatic language from cognitiveperspective. So it is hard for people to understand diplomatic language from cognitiveperspective. From the cognitive point of view, the present thesis does qualitative anddescriptive research on the production and interpretation of pragmatic vagueness under theframework of Adaptation-Relevance Theory for Premier Wen’s English version of diplomaticlanguage in the press conference. Pragmatic vagueness in diplomatic language is not a staticconcept but rather a dynamic interpersonal activity. It is also a process of dynamicunderstanding of context and dynamic adaptation to the speaker’s meaning for the participants.First, cognitive context plays a dispensable part in the production and interpretation ofvagueness in diplomatic language. Second, vagueness in diplomatic language is the process ofinter-adaptation between linguistic behavior and contextual correlates. Third, the choice ofvagueness is the result of adaptability to social, mental and physical world. Finally, the authorargues the functions of vagueness in diplomatic language. This thesis aims to improveawareness of people to pragmatic vagueness strategy; find a systematic and comprehensivetheory to illustrate the production and interpretation of pragmatic vagueness; seek out thefunctions that pragmatic vagueness can fulfill in diplomatic language.The findings show that Adaptation-Relevance Theory can provide a better illustration forthe generation and interpretation of pragmatic vagueness in diplomatic language. Besides, itbears great theoretical and practical significance. The theoretical significance is mainly in thestudy of pragmatic vagueness in diplomatic language while practical significance is for thesuccess of diplomatic activities. Furthermore, this thesis can facilitate foreign languageteaching and diplomatic communicative competence.