An Analysis On Hedges Of Obama’s Remarks In Press Conferences From The Pragmatic Perspective

Vagueness prevails in human verbal language. In1965, American scientist L.A. Zadeh proposed“fuzzy set” and introduced it to the field of linguistics. Hedge, as a significant part of vagueness, isconsidered as the most valuable vague language. Since the1970s, various scholars have conductedresearches on hedges from different perspectives: semantically, psychologically and pragmatically. Atpresent, the studies on hedges have been exerted into the application fields such as political speeches, newsreports, scientific articles, law papers and advertisement and so forth. However, relatively limited studieshave been conducted on the relationship between hedges and American diplomatic language, to say nothingof a study on hedges in the American Presidents’ remarks in press conferences from the perspective ofCooperative Principle and Politeness Principle.The present study randomly selects ten pieces of Obama’s remarks in press conferences as the researchsubject. Based on K. Hyland’s definition and Prince et al.’s classification, all hedges in the corpus arecounted and presented. In the light of Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle, the qualitative andquantitative research methods are adopted to discuss hedges employed in Obama’s remarks, and thepragmatic functions are further investigated under the context of press conferences. Hence, the researchaims to explore the following questions:(1) What are the distribution and frequency of hedges used inObama’s remarks in press conferences?(2) How are different types of hedges used in Obama’s remarks inpress conferences from the pragmatic perspective?(3) What are the pragmatic functions of hedges inObama’s remarks in press conferences?The research results show that hedges are pervasive in Obama’s remarks among which plausibilityshields take up the largest proportion, with adaptors sequencing the second place, rounders the third and theattribution shields the last. From the pragmatic perspective, the research explores how Obama observes orviolates Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle to generate conversational implicature and achievecertain intentions in the context of press conferences. It is also found that the usage of hedges in ORPCdoes fulfill some pragmatic functions: enhancing reliability, expressing politeness, strengtheningself-protection, reinforcing flexibility and creating harmonious atmosphere. The thesis consists of five chapters:Chapter One is the introduction of the research, which is comprised of research background, researchsignificance, research objectives and the organization of the thesis.Chapters Two is the literature review. It presents the definitions and classifications of hedges, theprevious studies on the press conference at home and abroad as well as the theoretical framework for theresearch.Chapter Three is mainly about the research design. It provides the research questions, data collection,research methods and procedures of the study. In addition, the working definition and classification is alsointroduced in this chapter.Chapter Four is about result presentation and discussion as the key part of the research. Firstly, basedon the definition and classification adopted in this thesis, the distribution and classification of all hedges arepresented with the support of the figures and tables. Secondly, the pragmatic analysis is conducted withsome concrete instances from the pragmatic perspective. Finally, some pragmatic functions of hedges in theORPC are further investigated in the research.Chapter Five is the conclusion of the study. It summarizes the major findings, implications, limitationsof the present research. Moreover, it presents some suggestions for future study.The research is a worthy application of Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle in Obama’sremarks in press conferences, which once again demonstrates their effectiveness and practicability. Thestudy provides a new perspective to explore the linguistic features and inherent rules of press conferenceand presents the practical instances to diplomats for the appropriate application of hedges. In addition, thestudy points out some implications to the language researchers and learners for further study on hedges.