Study On Pragmatic Functions Of Reporting Verbs In English Technical Reports

As a type of mass media, English technical reports inform people of the latest eventsof science and technology around the world. However, during the process of technicalreports, mass of reporting verbs are used to keep reports objective and convincing. Itseems that reporting verbs are mainly used to keep reports objective and convincing.However, during the report process, the reporter always hides his or her own intention byusing reporting verbs. In fact, different reporting verbs may convey different meaningsand attitudes of reporters towards the original speaker. Then, there come researchquestions: how does the author hide his or her real intention by using reporting verbs?What are pragmatic functions of reporting verbs in English technical reports? In order toanswer research questions above, therefore, this thesis is mainly designed to explore howthe reporter hides his or her real intention by using reporting verbs and what pragmaticfunctions of reporting verbs in English technical reports are.With regard to scientific research method in this research thesis, this thesis isconducted based on a corpus which contains reporting verbs in sixty English technicalreports in Times (52963words in total) from May,2012to September,2012. Among thenumerous reporting verbs, this thesis examines pragmatic functions of high-frequencyreporting verbs, ignoring analyses of low-frequency reporting verbs. The corpus contains111reporting verbs, which are used913times during the report. Through scientificanalysis, it is found that during the technical reporting process, five pragmatic functionsare associated with use of high-frequency reporting verbs within technical reports.Specifically, the five pragmatic functions are vocative function, mitigating function,attitudinal function and coding-decoding economical function as well as interpersonalfunction. It is hoped that through scientific analysis of pragmatic functions of high-frequency reporting verbs, readers of technical reports would gain a comprehensiveunderstanding of reporters’ real intentions hidden behind technical reports. Furthermore,it is hoped that this thesis would provide guidance for relevant researches in the future.Examining from five pragmatic functions, it could be certain that by using reportingverbs, reporter could hidden his or her real intention easily. It has been proven thatnegative reporting verbs are used to show negative emotions of the reporter towards theoriginal speaker; positive reporting verbs are used to show positive emotions andattitudes. Meanwhile, neutral reporting verbs are used to show neutral attitudes.Therefore, consequently, through analysis, the research question “how does the reporterhide his or her own attitude” could be explained and answered. In addition, through usingreporting verbs, there would have a close interpersonal relationship between reporter andthe original speaker as well as readers.