Analysis Of Vague Language In The Script Of Sex And The City And Its Pragmatic Functions

Vagueness is one of the basic features of language.In order to master a second language,learners should master not only the knowledge of grammar but also the knowledge of pragmatics,and the use of vague language is a significant part of the knowledge of pragmatics.In English language teaching,teachers tend to emphasize the importance of grammar and ignore the teaching of vague language.As a result,learners have a poor understanding of vague language and seldom use vague words in daily communication.Therefore,their speech becomes rigid and inflexible,which will inevitably affect their communicative competence.Vagueness has been studied for years by many researchers and scholars at home and abroad.Nevertheless,most studies investigate vague language in advertising texts,news texts and legal texts,and the studies on pragmatic functions of vague language in the context of English television drama are relatively sparse.This study takes the first season of Sex and the City as the research object.Based on the relevant works and papers on vague language,with qualitative analysis as the main method and quantitative analysis as the auxiliary method,the researcher uses the Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle to analyze the usage of vague language in the script of Sex and the City,especially its classification and pragmatic functions.This study will answer two research questions:(1)How many categories are there in the script of Sex and the City as far as vague language is concerned?(2)What are the pragmatic functions of vague language in the script of Sex and the City based on the Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle?At the lexical level,the researcher divides vague language into two categories,namely vague words and hedges.Vague words refer to words whose meanings are vague themselves,and hedges are words that make the word(s)or sentence(s)they modify vague.Vague words include modal auxiliary verbs,cognitive adjectives and cognitive nouns,while hedges include hedges of degree,hedges of range,quantity hedges and quality hedges.Based on the Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle,the researcher analyzes the usage of vague words and hedges in the script of Sex and the City and calculates the quantity and frequency of each category.Results of the study show that the use of vague language usually follows the Politeness Principle,but speakers sometimes use vague language to violate the maxim(s)of the Cooperative Principle according to the needs of communication,which shows that the Politeness Principle adjusts conversations at a higher level than the Cooperative Principle.If used appropriately,vague language can provide a proper amount of information,retain information purposely,protect the speaker and make language more flexible,polite,accurate,humorous and beautiful.The analysis of vague language and its pragmatic functions in the script of Sex and the City is meaningful for the understanding and the proper use of vague language in English.From the perspective of semantics,this study helps readers have a better understanding of the interpretations and categorizations of vague language.From the perspective of pragmatics,this study helps readers understand the pragmatic functions of vague language and enables readers to use vague language appropriately so as to improve their communicative competence.The results of this study can be utilized to deal with the problems in communicative skills teaching,English language teaching and second language acquisition.