Analyzing Pragmatic Vagueness In Diplomatic Language With Adaptation Theory

This thesis is devoted to research vagueness in diplomatic language with Adaptation Theory. The theory of Fuzzy Set put forward by Zadeh in1965symbolized the birth of a new discipline, fuzzy linguistics. Zadeh stated that besides our physical world, people’s mind and language are filled with fuzziness. Because of Zadeh’s influence, people began to have a deeper comprehension of language vagueness, which thus promoted the study on language vagueness. However, pragmatic vagueness in diplomatic language has drawn fewer researchers’attention. Therefore, this thesis will take the Foreign Ministry spokespersons’remarks at regular press conferences as a case to study pragmatic vagueness in diplomatic language with Adaptation Theory as the theoretical framework.In this research, the thesis defines vagueness in a somewhat open fashion based on the previous researches. Based on Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory, this thesis makes a qualitative research and inquires into the application of vagueness in diplomatic language by dissecting the remarks of spokespersons in Regular Press Conference. From the perspective of structural adaptability and contextual adaptability, this thesis places more emphasis on analyzing clearly what structural objects of adaptability vagueness had in diplomatic language. The findings indicate that pragmatic vagueness in spokespersons’remarks mainly presents its structural adaptability at the lexical level and the sentential level. Spokespersons manipulate these linguistic forms of vagueness to express different illocutionary forces. Meanwhile, the findings also indicate that spokespersons are fully aware of and highly motivated in their linguistic choices of vagueness. Using vagueness strategy helps the speaker adapt to the mental world, the social world and the physical world (the contextual correlates), the context associated with Regular Press Conference, thus to complete the spokespersons’communicative purposes. Then, the thesis turns to analyze what functions vagueness performs in diplomatic language from the pragmatic perspective. The research finds out that properly employing vagueness in diplomatic activities can effectively promote the development of the harmonious diplomatic relations, achieving the pragmatic effect of enhancing flexibility, protecting oneself, withholding information, exhibiting politeness, etc.The research shows that the appropriate use of vagueness in diplomatic occasions would contribute to the improvement of language validity to some extent rather than hinder the accuracy of diplomatic language. Employing pragmatic vagueness, which can make utterances neither true nor false and have indeterminate interpretations, meets the special purpose of diplomacy——to maintain different countries’national interests and their political relationships. The present study on vagueness tries to do some work to push forward the researches on fuzzy linguistics and pragmatics. Besides, the research may also enlighten those who are engaged in diplomatic work, translation and educational work. They may get some implications from this study to help understand diplomatic language more accurately.