A Study On The Metapragmatic Functions Of English Hedges

Hedge is an indispensable part of fuzzy linguistics. Scholars of different countries have done many pragmatic researches of hedges, but no detail research has been done on metapragmatic functions. In daily communication, hedge is pervasive. Hedges are coordinated and selected through language users’ metapragmatic awareness, which can facilitate the accuracy of expression and both parties’ cooperation in a higher level, and satisfy the language users’ expectations for the optimal relevance, so as to make the communication proceed more accurately, objectively and smoothly.Based on the metapragmatic awareness in Verschueren’s Adaptation,the paper discussed and analyzed hedges combined with the Cooperative Principles and Relevance Theory. Besides, according to E. F. Prince’s classification of hedges, the author selected 5 hedges that constantly appeared in daily life from each class, and then chose data about those 25 hedges(including 5 synonyms) from the BNC Corpus. Added with the instances generally used in daily life constitute the data of the thesis.The research on hedges in this dissertation belongs to that on metapragmatic field. Thus, the paper does not restrict the discussion merely on the pure research of theory. Instead, the research is carried out with documentary method and contrast research method. After deliberate analysis and discussion, the findings of the thesis are shown as following. Adaptors reflect the speakers’ cognitive attitude. Rounders hedge is a kind of pragmatic strategy that restricts the scope of topics and helps speakers avoid impoliteness. Plausibility hedge shows speakers’ direct guess or evaluation on the content of the topic. Attributors present the speakers’ indirect guess or evaluation on the content of the topic. All these reflect the speakers’ metapragmatic awareness. On the basis of these results, the paper explores the metapragmatic functions especially on the aspects of accuracy and approximation to authenticity, combined with the principles of Cooperative Principle and Relevance Theory. The author found out the use of hedges ensures the effect of communicative interaction, caters to the Cooperative Principle in a higher level, adapts to the Optimal Relevance and repairs the communicative fault.