模糊限制语在英语新闻中的语用-文学学士毕业论文.doc

Abstract

As an important part of fuzzy language, hedges were first put forward by George Lakoff in 1972. Along with the development of fuzzy linguists, there has been an increasing interest in hedges; a growing interest among hedges has emerged to explore the field of lexicology, pragmatics, discourses analysis translation and second acquisition, and other fields. The Pragmatic Function of Hedges in News has also been one of the research interests in the studies of hedges. However, the study on this aspect of hedges is very limited.
News language is different from general texts, it needs to express briefly and accurately. However, on some special occasions, the application of hedges can play a vital role in news language. This dissertation aims to conduct a study on the application of hedges in English news and its pragmatic functions, in the hope to help readers know better about English news and the necessity of hedges in news language. The first part of this paper is an introduction, giving a brief introduction to the writing background and purpose. Then, the author introduces about the definition and classification of hedges as well as the theoretical basis of this paper: cooperative principle; politeness principle as well as face theory. Then, the author discusses on the language features of English news. Next, the author focuses on the application of hedges in English news as well as its pragmatic functions. The last part is a conclusion, in which the whole paper will be summarized.
Key words：English news; Hedges; Pragmatic function

摘 要

模糊限制语作为模糊语言重要的一部分，由George Lakoff 于1972年首次提出。随着模糊语言学的发展，模糊限制语得到越来越多的关注，对模糊限制的探索延伸到词汇学、语用学、语篇翻译分析、二语习得等领域。模糊限制语在新闻中的语用功能已成为研究对象之一，然而，有关模糊限制语在这方面的研究非常有限。
新闻语言不同于一般的文体，它要求精确简洁地表达。但在一些特殊情况下，模糊语言的运用反而可以起到很好的作用。本文旨在探讨模糊语在新闻英语中的运用及其语用功能，力求帮助读者更好地理解英语新闻和揭示模糊限制语在新闻语言中存在的必要性。本文首先是一个引言，简单介绍了论文写作背景及意义。进而介绍了模糊语概念分类以及本文写作的相关理论知识：合作原则、礼貌原则以及面子理论。并在分析新闻英语的语言特点的基础上，着重阐述了模糊语言在新闻英语中的英语及其语用功能。第五章是论文的结论部分，总结了全文。
关键词: 英语新闻；模糊限制语；语用功能

Contents

Abstract...........................................................................................................................................i
摘 要 ii
1. Introduction................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Rationale 1
1.2 Aim and objectives 1
1.3 Research method and data collection 1
1.4 Organization of the dissertation 2
2. Literature Review......................................................................................................................3
2.1 Introduction 3
2.2 Definitions of hedges 3
2.2.1 Classification of hedges 3
2.2.2 Previous studies on hedges 4
2.3Theoretical framework 4
2.3.1 Grice’s Cooperative Principle 5
2.3.2 Leech’s Politeness Principle 6
2.3.3 Brown & Levinson’s Face Theory 7
3. Reasons for Hedges in English News........................................................................................9
3.1 Introduction 9
3.2 Characteristics of English news 9
3.2.1 Timely 9
3.2.2 Objective 9
3.2.3 Informative 10
3.2 Demand of English news characteristics 10
4. Pragmatic Function of Hedges in News.................................................................................12
4.1 Introduction 12
4.2 Being cooperative 12
4.2.1 Violation of maxim of quality 12
4.2.2 Violation of maxim of quantity 12
4.3 Being polite 13
4.4 Saving face 13
4.4.1 Saving reporter’s face 13
4.4.2 Saving reader’s face 14
5. Conclusion................................................................................................................................16
5.1 Major findings 16
5.2 Limitation and suggestion 16
References.....................................................................................................................................17
Appendix.......................................................................................................................................18
Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................19

1. Introduction
1.1 Rationale
Fuzziness is one of the essential features of natural language, and its importance is not less than other language features found early. As an important part of fuzzy language, hedges were first put forward by George Lakoff in 1972. Hedges are widely used in trade negotiations and political, diplomatic and legal terms and news. With strong language application, the Pragmatic Function of Hedges in News has also been one of the research interests in the studies of hedges. However, the study on this aspect of hedges hasn’t been totally developed. Quite a few people usually held the view that accuracy is the most important characteristic of news writing. But ambiguity is the essence of natural language attributes. Hedges refers to that people sometimes could not say with precision, and even deliberately put “fuzzy” in order to achieve a pragmatic purpose language. Ambiguity refers to the language of uncertainty. In news report, the journalist adheres to Leech’s politeness principle, Grice’s cooperative principle and face theory. The application of hedges in English News follow two general principles of communication related to language use, namely the Cooperative Principle, Politeness Principle, and Face Theory. Yule (as cited in An Introduction to Linguistics 2011:118), pointed out, “Someone who use hedges are not only aware of the maximums, but that they are willing to show they are trying to observe those principles”. This dissertation aims to conduct a study on the application of hedges in English news and its pragmatic functions, in the hope to help readers know better about English news and the necessity of hedges in news language.
1.2 Aim and objectives
The dissertation is primarily concerned with the following three research questions:
(ⅰ) What is the relation between the application of hedges and the characteristics of news?
(ⅱ) What principle should be followed when hedges are applied to English news?
(ⅲ) What’s the pragmatic function of hedges in English news?
This thesis will study on the application of hedges in English news and its pragmatic functions, it is hoped that this study will benefit English news readers and writers. The significance of this thesis is both theoretical and practical. A good knowledge of pragmatic functions of hedges in English news will provide insights for news reading and interpretation in certain social contexts, and give some inspiration for the writing of news.
1.3 Research method and data collection
The corpus consists of 15 pieces of English news, which are chosen from China daily, and The New York Times. These three newspapers are widely read by people, so this dissertation collects data from them. These samples English News published during 2010-2012, which are selected at random from current English news that turn up in two main newspapers available at school library and Internet.
Data analysis is used in order to characterize the principal forms of hedges in the representative samples of English news. By analyzing the major hedging expressions and the frequencies appeared in news, the dissertation can clearly reveal the pragmatic functions of hedges in English news.
1.4 Organization of the dissertation
The dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter One briefly introduces the rationale, aim and objectives, and data collection of the research. Chapter Two relates the review of literature to the hedges, and theoretical framework of present study. Chapter Three summarizes the characteristics of English news and the reason for the existence of hedges in English news. Chapter Four is the main body of the dissertation in which two principles for analysis outlined in Chapter Two is applied to analyze the collected data to indicate pragmatic functions of hedges in English news and further combines with the news language feature to explain the practical function of hedges. Chapter Five draws conclusions, discusses limitations of the dissertation and suggests further research.

2. Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
This chapter begins with the review of concepts of hedges and the classification for the hedges and at the same time it discusses related studies on hedges in news reports. The final section of this chapter outlines the theoretical framework that will be applied in the subsequent chapter.
2.2 Definitions of hedges
Fuzziness is one of the essential features of natural language, and its importance is not less than other language features found early. As an important part of fuzzy language, Hedges were first proposed by the U.S. linguist Lakoff who proposed it in 1972 and began to study it, and it was defined as “Words whose job is to make things fuzzy or less fuzzy”. According to the oxford concise dictionary of linguists with Chinese translation, hedge is a linguistic device by which a speaker avoids being comprised by a statement that turns out to be wrong, a request that is not acceptable, and so on.
2.2.1 Classification of hedges
Arising from no unified definition of hedge, researchers may hold different views of the categorizations of hedges. Prince (1982) claims that there are at least two kinds of hedges from semantic and pragmatic perspectives, one is approximator (contain adaptor and rounder), and the other type of it is shield (contain attribution and plausibility). At home, Wu Tieping (1999：71) argues that hedges can be classified into four kinds from the viewpoint of grammar. The first kind is some adjectives and adverbs, such as often, very, possibly, perhaps etc. The second kind is some suffixes, such as“-ish”, “-like”. If they are used after some words, hedges will be formed. The third kind is some phrases. When speakers or writers’ have uncertainty and indecisive view towards something, they will use some phrases to show politeness, such as as if, as though ,etc．The last kind is those expressive structures, which show politeness when speakers or writers express their subjective views or points, such as I think, I guess, as far as I can tell, etc.
In this dissertation, the author chooses Prince’s categorization to analyze the pragmatic function of hedges in English news. Approximators are capable of changing the true condition of proposition, or revising original words, or giving a variable range to original words. The adaptor is widely used when the writer is not certain, such as a little bit, sort of, kind of, somewhat, more or less, almost, etc. When it comes to rounders, they are applied to some situation on which is not precise. Usually, it modifies the data. Rounders includes about, around, between…and…, approximately, etc. On the contrary, shield cannot change the true condition of proposition, which mainly points out the writer himself and the third person’s views to make the original discourse easer. Plausibility includes I think, as far as I am concerned, I suppose, I wonder, as far as can tell, it seems/appears to me, etc. Attribution includes according to…, it is said that…, someone suggests that…, etc, which expresses idea indirectly.
2.2.2 Previous studies on hedges
As a general term of fuzzy linguistics, pragmatic studies of hedges started from the early 1980s. In foreign countries, Brown & Levinson (1988) put forward the politeness principle, and regard the hedges as negative politeness strategy that to avoid opposition, to save face of speaker or a listener. Prince (1982) divided the hedges into change type hedges and eases type hedges, and had research on hedges from the perspective of language marker.
In China, academic views that professor Wu Tieping is a pioneer of the study of fuzzy linguistic. The concept of hedges began to move into pragmatic and discourse areas in the 1980s. Some scholars in China have done researches on hedges since 1980s, such as Wu Tieping, He Ziran, etc. Many Domestic scholars attempted to analyze the hedges from the pragmatic perspective. Chen Yide (2000) analyzes hedges in the verbal communication and its pragmatic function. Yang Huiling (2001) discusses Pragmatic Function of Hedges in the scientific papers, Yang Yujun (2002) and Chen Zhian (1995/1996) uses the cooperative principle and politeness principle to analyze communicative functions of the hedges. Chen Chen (2010) discusses the characteristics of hedges in English news .Zhen Wei (2010) has a study of the hedges and its functions from perspective of news reports characteristics.
From the studies mentioned above, we can see hedges, as one important part of fuzzy language family, have drawn the attention of linguists abroad and home. Since 1980s, researches on pragmatic functions of hedges become more and more popular. However, the researches on pragmatic functions in English news are rare and few people discussed about the relation between hedges and discourse implicature. In some situations, improper usage of hedges will cause misunderstandings, which warns us that we should realize the discourse context. As a mass medium, news influence people’s life deeply. English, as one important part of news language, has its own characters in lexical and syntactic aspects. English News requires the expressions to be objective, timely and accurate, while hedges get the features of indirectness, indefiniteness. So the study on pragmatic functions of hedges in English news is of importance. The author would analyze the pragmatic functions of hedges in English news in this thesis.
2.3Theoretical framework
In this section some main pragmatic principles and theories are engaged in approaching the use of hedges and their functions in language. Firstly, by the employment of hedging expressions, the conversational implicatures can be cancelled or weakened. Secondly, when dealing with Grice’s Cooperative Principle, hedging expressions tend to observe the essence of the Cooperative Principle though seemingly flouting the prescription of certain maxim. With the communicative perspective, the news report is also an interaction between journalist and reader. Therefore, the writer should follow the natural language rules and communication theory in order to improve the quality of news. Finally, it’s helpful to accommodate the Politeness Principle and Face Threatening Act theory to analyze some pragmatic functions of hedging expressions for which the Cooperative Principle cannot account .Through the analysis of hedges by two principles and Face Theory, the conclusion is drawn that hedges perform mainly three pragmatic functions．
2.3.1 Grice’s Cooperative Principle
As phrased by Paul Grice (1975:23), who introduced Cooperative Principle, it states “Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purp