An Analysis Of The Lexical Vagueness In English Economic Policy News Based On The Relevance Theory

Language is the fundamental carrier of news reports.As vagueness,the indeterminacy on the boundary of expressions,is an inherent property of the human language.English economic policy news is also influenced by vagueness.In the academic field,vague language is often distinguished and probed from three different levels: lexical vagueness,contextual vagueness,and cross-cultural vagueness.This thesis focuses on the lexical vagueness in English economic news reports.Based on the relevance theory,this study specifically addresses the mechanism of lexical vagueness embodied in economic policy news.The data were 57 pieces of news in 2017,collected from the column of policy,laws and regulations in the website Singapore-China economic and trade corporation of Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China(MOFCOM).According to the classification of lexical vagueness by Channell(2000)and Varttala(2001),the lexical vagueness was sorted out,and the distribution of lexical vagueness was described.The lexical vagueness included 1,264 words and takes 6 percentage in the self-established MOFCOM corpus,in which the adjective vagueness had the highest frequency,while the preposition vagueness had the lowest.Further data analysis arrives at the following findings.Firstly,vagueness is widely utilized in the various settings and on different purposes,which demonstrates that vagueness is an important aspect for policy news writers.Second,based on the relevance theory,the use of vague language in generating process of English economic policy news is to achieve four functions: making the communication smooth,increasing the credibility of policy news,avoiding the absolute speaking,and meeting the reading preference of audiences.Although vague language can help reporters achieve the integrated news reporting,reporters should use the lexical vagueness in a proper way.