An Analysis Of Hedges In Diplomatic Language From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

The phenomenon of vague language is prevalent in human communication.As a part of the vague language,hedges gradually attract the attention of many scholars and become the focus of vague language research.In recent years,many scholars have changed the research focus on hedges from the semantic level to the pragmatic level.It has been found that the pragmatic research of hedges in diplomatic language mainly focuses on theories such as cooperation principle,politeness principle,relevance principle,etc.Some scholars have studied the interpersonal meaning and functions of hedges in diplomatic language as well.However,there are not so many researches on hedges in diplomatic language from the perspective of adaptation theory.The study found that there are a lot of hedges in the diplomatic language used by spokespersons of the White House.According to Verschueren’s adaptation theory,language use is a continuous process of language choices.Therefore,the choice of hedges is a process of a continuous language choice of spokespersons so as to achieve certain communicative purposes.Thus based on Verschueren’s adaptation theory,this thesis attempts to carry out a specific analysis of hedges from the perspective of pragmatics.The thesis selects eight texts of the White House’s press briefings as the corpus and uses Verschueren’s adaptation theory as a theoretical basis to study structural and contextual adaptation of hedges in diplomatic language.Besides,some pragmatic functions of hedges are discussed as well.Three questions are addressed in the thesis.Firstly,how are hedges realized in diplomatic language?Secondly,why do diplomats choose to use hedges in diplomatic language?Thirdly,what pragmatic functions do hedges have in diplomatic language?The thesis is primarily divided into five chapters.The first chapter introduces the background of study,significance of study,methodology,and structure of the thesis.The second chapter first introduces the definitions and classifications of hedges,and then analyzes the characteristics of hedges from the perspective of pragmatics.At last,it reviews domestic and foreign scholars’ studying status and their contributions to hedging study.The third chapter looks at Verschueren’s adaptation theory and its relative conceptions.In addition,this thesis also describes the relationship between hedges and adaptation theory.The fourth chapter is the main body of the thesis in which the hedges in the White House’s press briefings are analyzed in detail from the perspective of the adaptation theory.Structural adaptation,contextual adaptation and some pragmatic functions of hedges are explored in this chapter.This chapter falls into five parts:the first part summarizes the definition of diplomatic language;the second part introduces the spokesperson and language of the White House’s press briefings;the third part analyzes structural adaptation of hedges in diplomatic language from the perspective of the adaptation theory.This part mainly involves analysis in two aspects,namely,lexical level and syntactic level;the fourth part analyzes the contextual adaptation of the hedges in diplomatic language from the perspective of adaptation theory.This part mainly comprises the analysis from three aspects,namely,mental world,physical world,and social world;the fifth part mainly discusses and summarizes the pragmatic functions of hedges in diplomatic language.The last chapter summarizes the major findings,implications,limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.This study draws the conclusion that the selection of hedges in diplomatic language is a continuous process of language choice made by the spokesperson so as to achieve certain communicative purposes.It is the result of adapting to the mental world,physical world,and social world.In this process,hedges in the diplomatic language demonstrate structural adaptation both at the lexical and syntactic level.In addition,the appropriate use of hedges has some pragmatic functions such as protecting speakers,improving vagueness,enhancing objectivity and strengthening credibility of diplomatic language.Vershueren’s adaptation theory has an important guiding significance for the practical study of hedges and it can explain the hedging phenomenon more comprehensively.