An Adaptation-based Approach To Hedges In TV Interview Programs

Since Lakoff (1972) first proposes the term "hedges" in fuzzy language, the study of hedges has been a subject of great interest to scholars from various disciplines. Reviewing the previous studies of hedges reveals that most of the research of hedges falls within the scope of pragmatic discourse analysis, of which genres include political oration, legal texts, advertisements, news reports and academic writings. Little work of hedges has been conducted in TV interview programs from the perspective of Adaptation Theory. The present study tempts to describe and discuss the employment of hedges in the8pieces of selected TV interview programs.To carry on the study, present research conducted is principally to proceed on the following three questions.:(1) What is the adaptive framework applied to explain the various forms of hedges in the TV interview programs?(2) What are the linguistic realization forms of hedges in the selected TV interview programs?(3) How do the speakers apply various forms of hedges to reach contextual correlates adaptability?For the above the research objectives, both qualitative and quantitative methodologies are adopted to carry on the study. An overview of fuzziness and hedges is firstly depicted home and abroad. On the basis of the previous classifications of hedges, the taxonomy of hedges in the present study is generally classified from the grammatical angle, namely verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, modal verbs, indefinite pronoun, tag question, if-clause, phrasal hedges and impersonalization. Adaptation Theory as the theoretical basis, the generation mechanism of hedges in interviews is also proposed and acts as an assumption that the various hedging strategies are the result of adapting to contextual correlates. With all the discussion above, the present study mainly probes into the distribution and frequency of the10forms of hedges in TV interview programs and the interpretation of hedges in TV interview programs from the adaptive framework.The data analysis verifies that in the complex communication, all the10types of hedges could be employed. Among the10forms of hedges, adverbs, verbs and phrasal hedges are more frequently applied to obtain the communicative objectives than other7forms. The analysis also testified that the linguistic adaptability is the result of its variability and negotiability. With the help of various kinds of hedges in language communication, the interlocutors can adapt to the occupation, identity, the interview programs rules, social culture, space and time effectively. Lastly, the research shows that Adaptation Theory is of feasibility to explain the hedging function in TV interview programs. Having a good knowledge of Adaptation Theory and hedging functions, the communicators and language learners can make their communication more effectively.