An Analysis Of Hedges In Downton Abbey From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Fuzziness is the vital and indispensable characteristics of human language while phenomenon of fuzziness appears in daily conversation from time to time.Hedge is the perfect representative of language fuzziness and it was the rage a time at home and abroad.In general,hedge is mainly researched by linguists for its functions in semantics,pragmatics,psycholinguistics and so on.And common characteristics of most researches is that scholars mostly analyze hedge's functions in written language,such as news,advertisements,academic paper and even courtroom language,but there is expansive space for studying hedge in daily conversation.Based on theoretical basis of the adaptation theory,the thesis takes the dialogues in Downton Abbey as the corpus,which aims to make an analysis of hedges in Downton Abbey.The paper makes an attempt to figure the answers of the following questions:First one,What kinds of hedges appear in Downton Abbey and how the hedges are used in various contexts of Downton Abbey.The second one,What is the pragmatic functions of hedges from the perspective of adaptation theory The last one,what is the characters of usage of hedges from the perspective of adaptation theory in Downton Abbey.The process of analyzing the hedges and the answers of the questions can give some insight to English learner in perspective of language using.Here are the research findings:in the perspective of adaptation theory,analyzing dynamically and deeply how the hedges in Downton Abbey adapt to the Mental World,the Social World and the Physical World.The paper summarizes the following six functions of hedges:avoiding taboo,achieving accuracy,showing politeness,making an emphasis,fencing the questions and enhancing the persuasion.After analyzing the kinds,usage and functions of hedges in Downton Abbey,some useful and potential properties of hedges are as the followings:1)In mental world,more than one kind of hedges are often mixed to use at the same time.What is more,Communicators like to apply the same one hedge repeatedly at the same time.Finally,the adapters and frequency are used more commonly in the mental worlds.2)In social world,the models and plausibility shields are applied more commonly.What is more,compared with the complex hedges,the simple hedges are preferred in social world.3)In physical world,rounders are used more commonly.The signification of researching the paper are as the following:1)The adaptation theory of Verschueren offers a new angle for researchers to study the hedges while it is used to research the pragmatics in a completely new respective.2)It accelerate communicators realize that hedges are not only a kind of linguistic form,it is also a very useful communicative strategies.The paper can offer the language learner help to get the usage of hedges so that they can improve their ability in using language.3)the paper can offer the help for foreign language learners to understand British culture in Downton Abbey.In other words,foreign language learner can learn how to use hedges in different context for various aims well on condition that they understand the culture well.