A Pragmatic Analysis Of Hedges In How I Met Your Mother From The Perspective Of Politeness Principle

Generally speaking,fuzziness is a special phenomenon in human society.Hedges,as one kind of fuzziness,are a unique language phenomenon in human speech communication.They possess the important communicative functions.In human communication,people tend to use hedges to express their feelings and utterance meanings.Hedges refer to those words or phrases which can make the original meanings of some expressions with a clear meaning change into vagueness,when they are added in front of these expressions.There are special functions about hedges.On the one hand,they can change the true value of the original utterances;on the other hand,they can make the speaker's utterances polite and euphemistic.If we apply some hedges which are viewed as the background of fuzzy information in the conversation,the hearer can understand the speaker's main intention,thus the result of communication is clearer and more concrete.With the development of human society,more and more linguists view the functions of hedges seriously.The linguists coming from different countries study the hedges in the diverse fields,such as pragmatics,semantics,discourse,or cross-cultural communication,etc.Famous linguist Prince classified hedges into two categories: approximators and shields.This kind of classification is popularly admired by scholars.With the help of the qualitative analysis,the thesis pays more attention to studying the functions of hedges and the relationship between hedges and politeness principle,and it aims to find out how hedges are used to embody the six maxims of politeness principle.Although an increasing number of scholars study hedges,they mainly focus on the written language,and it is not enough to study the spoken language.Therefore,based on the six maxims of politeness principle,this thesis chooses a famous American series How I Met Your Mother to analyze the characters' utterances.In our daily life,sometimes the speakers are not sure about the source of information,or they are not willing to give the exact information,at this point the use of hedges can ensure the conversation to continue smoothly.Because the utterance atmosphere which is created by hedges is polite and harmonious,both the speaker and the hearer are willing to communicate with each other.In whatever background of culture and language,politeness is the basis of successful communication.Therefore,according to Leech's sixmaxims,this thesis will analyze the utterances in the series How I Met Your Mother with the theory of hedges,which aims to study hedges which are used to show the six maxims of politeness principle.This thesis contains three parts: introduction,body and conclusion.The first part is the introduction.It mainly introduces the research status of hedges and politeness principle abroad and at home.In addition,the thesis describes the research questions and research methods.Meanwhile,application value and theory meaning in the field of economy,technology,and social development will be involved.The second part is the body.It includes three chapters.The first chapter is literature review that includes three sections.The first section introduces hedges,mainly including the definitions and classifications of hedges from different linguists.The second section is the summary of politeness principle.It describes the definition of politeness principle and its six maxims.The last section is a brief introduction to the famous American series How I Met Your Mother.The second chapter focuses on one type of hedges,i.e.approximators.It indicates how approximators are applied in How I Met Your Mother to represent the six maxims of politeness principle.According to Prince,hedges can be classified into two types:approximators and shields.Approximators refer to those words or phrases that can change the original meaning of utterances.Similarly,approximators can be divided into two types: adaptors and rounders.The former refers to the expressions which can indicate the utterance's true value,while the later refers to the words or phrases that limit the range of fluctuation of utterance meaning.This chapter is also divided into two sections.The first section aims to analyze adaptors and the other section aims to analyze rounders.Through studying the two kinds of approximators,we can conclude that both of them can embody the politeness principle.In addition,the same one hedge can show different maxims in different contexts.The third chapter analyzes the other type of hedges,i.e.shields.Different from the approximators,shields do not change the original meaning of the utterances.It just makes the mood more relaxed.In the same way,shields are divided into two types:plausibility shields and attribution shields.The former involves the speaker-self,and it is spoken from the perspective of the speaker.The plausibility shields are the speaker'sopinions completely.While the later refers to the idea or speculation from the third party.It is the speaker's citation,in this way the speaker can lessen the responsibility for what he says.Also,it shows the speaker's politeness so that the conversation can go on smoothly.Similarly,this chapter consists of two sections.They state how to use these two types of shields to fulfill the six maxims of politeness principle respectively.The conclusion of this chapter is that shields can represent these six maxims in the conversation.People should choose appropriate shields to communicate politely in various conversational contexts.The third part is the conclusion.This chapter will make a summary for the whole thesis.The thesis mainly involves how hedges are used in the spoken English to show the six maxims of politeness principle.Meanwhile,it also describes some deficiencies of this thesis and expectations for the future,so that it can analyze the characters' utterances more systematically and roundly.Through analyzing these disadvantages and expectations,finally this thesis is aimed at making great contributions to the study of hedges,especially in spoken language.