An Analysis Of The Function Of Hedges In G20Summit From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

The clear and precise expression of language is always the ideal pursuit oflanguage users. However, vague expressions are everywhere in our language. Hedgeis an essential property of natural language. Since Zadeh put forward "Fuzzy SetTheory", vague phenomenon has drawn many linguists’ attention. Wu Tieping (1999)argued that vague language widely exists and the mastery of vague language cangreatly improve communicative competence. Vague language has a clear coremeaning with a fuzzy extension; in other words, it is clear semantically but obscurepragmatically. So far, researches have covered semantic fuzziness, pragmaticfuzziness and rhetorical fuzziness, in these areas such as business, news, diplomacyand laws. Yet few studies have been made on vague language in G20Summit bulletin,in spite of the fact that this summit plays a significant role in world economy.The Relevance Theory is applied to the analysis of the hedges in this thesis,especially the research of hedges in G20. Concepts in Relevance Theory such asostension-inferential principle and the optimal relevance principle are introduced.These concepts lay the theoretical groundwork for the study of hedges in diplomaticlanguage.Based on the Relevance Theory, this paper combines both qualitative andquantitative methods to analyze various lexical and syntactic hedges in the speechesdelivered at the press conference in G20Summit. Focusing on how the addressorexpresses his intentions with hedges and how the addressee achieves the optimalrelevance by inference, the author finds that the hedges employed in diplomaticlanguage can make the language more implicit and tactful, thus safeguarding the faceof the listener, avoiding embarrassment and unnecessary responsibility. Hedges indiplomatic language fully embody the flexibility and the wisdom of the diplomats.