A Contrastive Study Of Hegdes Between English And Chinese Economic News

As an intrinsic feature of human language, hedges widely exist in all kinds of linguistic systems andlinguistic communication. Based on Hyland’s taxonomy of hedges, this thesis tries to make a comparison toexplore the similarities and differences of the distribution of hedges and to explain the potential reasons forthese similarities and differences in English and Chinese economic news. After that, under the frameworkof Verschueren’s adaptation theory, this thesis will summarize some pragmatic functions brought about bythese hedges in economic news.Based on the research objectives, this study has three research questions:(1) Based on Hyland’staxonomy of hedges, what are the similarities and differences in English and Chinese economic news?(2)What are the causes for these similarities and differences of the usage of hedges between these two kinds ofnews?(3) On the guidance of Adaptation Theory, what are the pragmatic functions brought by hedges asadaptation to physical world, social world and mental world in economic news?This thesis is going to explore the above research questions through two small self-established corporaselected from two influential and authoritative newspapers: English Economist and Chinese21st CenturyBusiness Herald. In these two small paralleled corpora, the total number of English corpus is25130, whilethe Chinese is47334. Although the total number of the two corpora is of great difference, the proportion ofthe selected total number of English and Chinese is based on another self-established bilingual small corpus,of which the data come from China Daily. In order to make the collected data more scientific and precise,Hyland’s taxonomy of hedges will be adopted and the lexical and non-lexical hedges in economic newswill be manually defined and located to facilitate the comparison of the similarities and differences of thedistribution of hedges.According to the conducted systematical research and comparison, this thesis finds out:(1) The threekinds of hedges all make their appearances in economic news. Accuracy-oriented hedges and writer-orientehedges appear with higher frequency than reader-oriented hedges.(2) Chinese reporters adopt much morereader-oriented hedges than English reporters do.(3) The causes of the similarities of the distribution ofhedges in English and Chinese economic news mainly lies on the special requirements: accuracy, objectivity and timeliness of the economic news as a special genre as well as the willing to interact with thereaders. However, the differences mainly lie on Western and Chinese different ethos. Chinese writing ismostly reader-responsible under the influence of Chinese collective ethos, while English writing is mostlywriter-responsible under the influence of English individual ethos.Then based on Verschueren’s adaptation theory and as adaptation to the physical world, social worldand mental world, the pragmatic functions of hedges used in economic news are explored and summarized,including enhancing accuracy, objectiveness, and timeliness, avoiding conflicts, relieving readers’ pressureof memory, enhancing readers’ sense of participation, keeping secrets and enhancing flexibility, etc.This study can be divided into five chapters.Chapter One is the introduction, including background, motivation, objectiveness, methodology andsignification and overall structure of this thesis. Chapter Two is devoted to introduce the three relatedlinguistic terms, definitions and relevant overview studies on hedges at home and aboard. Hyland’staxonomy of hedges will be demonstrated in detail. Chapter Three provides the theoretical framework ofthis thesis---Verschueren’s adaptation theory. After that, research methodology is briefly introduced.Chapter Four is research discussion, which is concerned with main causes of the similarities anddifferences of hedges’ distribution and the pragmatic functions brought about by the employment of hedgesas to adapt to physical world, social world and mental world in economic news. Chapter Five makes aconclusion of the whole thesis which summarizes some major findings, implications, limitations andprospects of the present study.