Pragmatic Functions Of Hedges In The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

In linguistic area,fuzziness of fuzzy language has been widely studied as one of the natural properties of language.As an important part of fuzzy language,from the 1970s,hedges have aroused much attention and researchers at home and abroad have made great achievements in the study of hedges.In the studies of hedges,most of them are carried out from the perspective of various pragmatic theories,but there are few pragmatic studies based on adaptation theory.Moreover,hedges are widely studied,especially in the political,economic areas,news and other literary forms,while the studies of hedges in literary texts are still insufficient.The Catcher in the Rye,a famous American literary work,is a representative of the initiation novel and it is full of colloquial style in its language.There are many studies about the novel from the perspective of traditional literary criticism,but few studies are conducted from the perspective of pragmatics.Based on the two aspects,the thesis mainly studies the pragmatic functions of hedges in the novel The Catcher in the Rye.With the application of Verschueren's adaptation theory,the thesis analyzes the use of hedges in The C.atcher in the Rye.From the perspective of contextual correlates in adaptation theory,the thesis analyzes how the characters in the novel adapt to the physical.social and mental worlds by using hedges in the choice of language in discourse.In this analysis,the pragmatic functions of hedges have been analyzed through the theory and it is hoped that the thesis could provide a new outlook for the pragmatic study in literary works.The thesis finds that hedges are widely used in The Catcher in the Rye and hedges are helpful to the expression of language.At the same time,due to the characteristics of spoken language in the novel,the pragmatic functions of hedges are more characteristic.Through the adaptation to the three worlds,hedges present the following four pragmatic functions in the novel:being accurate,expressing emotions,protecting oneself and being informal.Through the pragmatic analysis of hedges,the thesis gives a new way of interpreting the novel and it is hoped to work out a new evaluation of the pragmatic study in literary works.Finally,the limitations of the research in the study are pointed out and future research is proposed.