摘 要

作为模糊语言家族中重要的成员，模糊限制语在二十世纪六十年代就引起

了语言学家们的注意。1972 年美国语言学家 Lakoff 在他的文章《语义标准和模糊概念逻辑的研究》中首次提出了“模糊限制语”这一概念，并把其定义为“把

事物弄得模模糊糊的词语”。上世纪 70 年代以来，模糊限制语研究涉及许多方面以及不同层面和方向，包括语义学、语用学等。在 80 年代模糊限制语研究渐渐深入到语用以及语篇领域。本文试图从语用学角度来分析外交语言中的模糊限制语。外交语言所涉及的范围很广，本文所指的“外交”仅限定于政治外交。

本文在搜集外交语料的基础上，分析了模糊限制语在外交语言这一特殊语言

中的特点及表现方式，并从语用学角度出发，运用会话含义、合作原则的违反及礼貌原则对外交语言中的模糊限制语进行分析，总结其语用功能。通过分析指出在政治外交场合中，模糊限制语的恰当使用不仅没减弱政治外交语言的准确性，反而在某种程度上有助于提高表达的有效性,具有表达礼貌，避免冲突、自我保护等功能。通过对外交语言中模糊限制语的语用分析，可以使人们更清楚地了解模糊限制语在外交甚至日常交际中的功能，对于人们更好的理解外交语言以及模糊限制语背后的深层含义起到帮助作用。

关键词：模糊限制语；会话含义；合作原则；礼貌原则；外交语言

Contents

Introduction....................................................................................................................1 2.Demonstration.............................................................................................................22.1 Political Diplomatic Language.................................................................................2

2.2 Hedges in Diplomatic Language and Conversational Implicature...........................3

2.2.1 Hedges and the Cancellability of Conversational Implicature..............................3

2.2.2 Hedges and the Indeterminacy of Conversational Implicature.............................4

2.3 Hedges in Diplomatic Language and Cooperative Principle...................................5

2.3.1 Violation of the Maxim of Quality........................................................................6

2.3.2 Violation of the Maxim of Quantity......................................................................6

2.3.3 Violation of the Maxim of Relation......................................................................7

2.3.4 Violation of the Maxim of Manner........................................................................8

2.4 Hedges in Diplomatic Language and Politeness Principle.......................................8

2.5 Functions of Hedges in Diplomatic Language.........................................................9

2.5.1 Performance of the Politeness.............................................................................10

2.5.2 Self-protection.....................................................................................................11

2.5.3Reinforcement of the Flexibility...........................................................................12

Conclusion....................................................................................................................14

Works Cited..................................................................................................................16

Bibliography.................................................................................................................17

The Pragmatic Functions of Hedges in Diplomatic Language

1.Introduction

Fuzziness is one important feature of languages. Hedges, as one main part of fuzzy language, have drawn the attention of linguists from the beginning of 1960s. In 1972, G.Lakoff first introduced the concept of hedges in his article “Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts” and defined them as “words whose functions are to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy”. (G.Lakoff，35)

Hedges have drawn wide attention both at home and abroad. Zadeh first studied the fuzziness of languages and he published the famous article “Fuzzy Sets” in 1965. In 1972, Zadeh used the concept “hedge” in his article “Fuzzy-Set-Theoretic Interpretation of Linguistic Hedges”, and he analyzed English hedges from the view of semantics and logic. Since the early 1970s, the concept of hedges has been adopted by pragmatists and discourse analysts. In 1975, Fraser analyzed modal verbs from the view of pragmatics in his Hedged Performatives. In 1978, Brown and Levinson’s study of politeness phenomena established the foundation for the analysis of hedges from the view of pragmatics, and they regarded hedges as an approach of avoiding dispute. On the basis of Brown and Levinson’s research, Myers argued that hedges can be understood as positive or negative “politeness strategies”. In conclusion, hedging study has been regarded as a semantic phenomenon to study in the 1970s. From the beginning of the 1980s, because of the influence of pragmatics and discourse analysis , the concept of hedges was expanded to the territory of interactional strategies.

In China, Wu Tieping was the first person who introduces fuzzy-set theory to China. Wu classified hedges from the angle of grammar and he also analyzed hedges from the aspect of upper or lower limit. In 1979, he published his famous article “A Tentative Study on Fuzzy Language”, and then in 1987 , his book named Fuzzy Language was published. Besides Wu, many other linguists in China have analyzed the use of hedges from different perspectives. He Ziran gave the first investigation into the functions of hedges in the middle of 1980s. He analyzed hedges mainly from their using in actual communication. He argued that hedges differ from some speakers’ own speaking habits that can be avoided, and hedges can reflect speakers’ attitudes towards their speaking content. This is necessary in actual communication. In 1994, Chen Linhua and Li Fuyin classified hedges into five types from semantic features. Chen Zhian analyzed hedges’ communicational functions with cooperative principle and politeness principle.

The study of hedges in China pays attention to the hedges’ meaning in actual using. Although many linguists do much study on hedges from various perspectives, a complete description still has not been achieved. For example, Sun Jianrong’s study on hedges just discussed one of the pragmatic functions of hedges, and some other researches on hedges also did not demonstrate other specific functions of hedges and the influence of using hedges. Based on the former studies, this thesis tries to explore the functions of hedges in political diplomatic language with the application of conversational implicature, violation of Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle. It tries to prove that the use of hedges in political diplomatic language is very common and the hedging devices act some special pragmatic functions in political language, which may allow people to use the hedges better in their daily life to make the conversation more effective.

2.Demonstration