Study On Linguistic Characteristics And Communicative Functions Of Pragmatic Vagueness In Netspeak

The constant development and advancement of science and technology made the Internet as the main force of technology entering people’s lives. It has altered human’s lifestyle. People in 21 st century utilize the Internet to communicate with outside world.Modern people use internet to make friends all around the world, shopping on internet and so forth. As the increased number of internet users, the language which they utilized during their communication process on internet has evolved into a special and unique language form that is netspeak. Since internet creates a virtual space for communication,therefore netspeak shows various and unique linguistic characteristics. It is known to all that vagueness is the essential attribute of each kind of language, so netspeak as a new language form also carries this attribute. In different communicative environments,people tend to apply vague language to achieve their communication purposes. Since the virtual space of internet and its uniqueness, it has differences when compared with natural language on pragmatic vagueness. Recent years, there has seen plenty of studies published on semantic vagueness but few systematic researches on pragmatic vagueness in communication, therefore in this study, the author has combined pragmatic vagueness with netspeak, trying to find out the linguistic characteristics of pragmatic vagueness, its communicative functions and the reasons accounting for pragmatic vagueness in netspeak. In this study, the author collected 100 conversations containing pragmatic vagueness in internet communication. They are all collected from Chinese social networking services such as QQ, Sina Weibo, Douban and Taobao. The author transcribed them into conversational forms, combining speech act theory, relevance theory and linguistic adaptation theory to analyze them respectively from lexical level,sentential level and non-verbal signs level. Through analyzing these conversations, the author studied the communicative functions of pragmatic vagueness.The results showed that, at lexical level, pragmatic vagueness represented as extensively utilization of hedges, metaphors, repetition of onomatopoeias and some wrongly written words; at sentential level, pragmatic vagueness phenomenacharacterized by indefinite deictic expressions, vague interrogative sentences and negative statements. Netspeak as a language need typing keyboard to communicate, there are some signs in netspeak as a representation of pragmatic vagueness, such as empty language phenomenon and symbolic forms and emoticons in netspeak. Pragmatic vagueness make internet communication more flexible, polite and it adds proper irony,humor, euphemism in the communication process. Its communicative functions are helpful for maintaining good relationship, but at the same time there are also many negative effects of pragmatic vagueness in netspeak. At last, the author probed into the reasons accounting for pragmatic vagueness in netspeak. According to linguistic adaptation theory, pragmatic vagueness in netspeak is the adaptation to the three worlds.And the economy principle, population of netizens and different psychological aspects are the main reasons accounting for pragmatic vagueness in netspeak. This study may contribute to the studies of online chatting activities. Meanwhile the research is also helpful for college E-learning teaching, improving students’ internet communication ability and using netspeak for language study. In general, the study of pragmatic vagueness of netspeak is not only a research trend in this area, but also has great practical significance for ensuring a comfortable and harmonious environment for online communication.