浅析模糊语及其语用功能 A Brief Introduction on the fuzzy language and its Pragmatic Functions

论文总字数：30153字

摘 要

语言是人类思考与交流的工具，是语音与语义相结合的符号系统。在这个庞大的符号系统中，音义结合的单位很多，有的准确，有的模糊。准确性和模糊性是人类语言的基本特征，缺少任何一方都难以想象。本课题着重强调模糊性，其中分析举例不可或缺。

自春秋战国时期，很多学者就模糊语做了很多研究，取得了很大的成就与进步。近年来，有关不同领域里模糊语言的差异及其不同的语用功能的研究相对较少, 不论是国内还是国外，这些研究在以后的发展中都是值得提倡与鼓励的.

本研究对模糊语进行探讨，介绍了模糊语的定义，种类以及尚未得到解决的问题，同时，从不同角度，不同领域展示了语用功能的差异。

关键词：模糊语；语用功能；模糊性

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. The Presentation of Fuzzy Language 2

3.1 Definition of fuzzy language 2

3.2 Types of fuzzy language 3

3.3 Functions of fuzzy language 5

4. The Application of Fuzzy Language in Different Fields 9

4.1 Business English 9

4.2 Daily English 10

4.3 Science English 10

4.4 Second language learning 11

4.5 The comparison of the application in these fields 12

5. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

Since the spring and autumn period, some philosophers have known that different scholars have different explications on fuzzy language. Confucius once said, words may not tell you all, and all may not depend only on words, which means what you said may not totally express what you are thinking, indicating unconsciously the use of fuzzy language .

Some ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Socrates were skeptical about the meaning of language in reflecting the truth, and they were worried about the difficulty of language in expressing the ultimate truth. We need use language to communicate with each other, including both accurate language and fuzzy language, so that many researches have been done to figure out the meaning of language especially how to use fuzzy language in our life – so-called pragmatic functions of fuzzy language. A famous English philosopher B.Russell has pointed out that language was more or less fuzzy”, who first demonstrated the existence of fuzziness in actual language use. In China, at that time, some experts paid much attention to pragmatic fuzziness. He Ziran focused on the pragmatic analysis of hedges. In fact, fuzzy language has its distinct pragmatic functions and is employed in many fields. In my dissertation, more attention is put on the application of fuzzy language, First, in chapter one and chapter two, I have given some introduction to this thesis. Second, some information about fuzzy language is shown to readers in chapter three. Third, the pragmatic functions of fuzzy language are especially introduced in chapter four.

Although so many scholars, experts and other scientists have done many researches on fuzzy language, we still have some problems not exactly figured out. For example, we still cannot define “fuzziness” precisely, which push us to do more analysis on fuzzy language. What I have done in this article is to analyze pragmatic functions of fuzzy language systematically, positive and negative, present the use of fuzziness in many fields, such as business, science, second language learning and the comparison of these uses.

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2. Literature Review

Fuzzy language has attracted more attention and participation these days, and more and more scholars or experts as well as scientists are exploring the features of “fuzziness” from different perspectives.

In my dissertation, more focus are put on linguistic aspects in which pragmatics is at the core. In 1923, B.Russell firstly put forward “fuzziness” as a natural phenomenon in his article “vagueness”. England scholars Brown and Levinson delivered “Universals in language usage, Politeness phenomena, firstly exploring this aspect systematically from three perspectives, which aroused great attention and was considered as an important part of pragmatics. It was G.Lakoff who put forward this argument, but a little bit general, so gaining little attention. Then Brown and Levinson made it more specific and systematic. Linguists like Wu Tieping, He Ziran and Yu Ruzhen have also done many researches about the pragmatic functions of fuzzy language accelerating the study of its denotation, connotation and expression in our daily life for many fields which I am going to explain in detail.

There are also some problems about fuzzy language remaining to be solved.

Firstly, although there are many researches about fuzzy language in different aspects, we still cannot figure out its accurate meaning, that is to say, we cannot give fuzzy language an exact definition that everyone agrees.

Secondly, there is no apparent line between vague language and fuzzy language and it’s difficult to differentiate fuzziness from ambiguity, hedges and some other terms. Some researchers think the notion of vagueness is bigger than fuzziness, but nobody can exactly and profoundly elucidate them.

Thirdly, many experts have discussed pragmatic functions of fuzzy language, but many researchers concentrate on its positive functions, in which negative functions are almost neglected. Therefore, there are still a lot of researches to do in the future.

3. The Presentation of Fuzzy Language

3.1 Definition of fuzzy language

In our daily communication, we use fuzzy words consciously and unconsciously which all the time we use them but we do not know exactly why we are employing them or can we have some theoretical bases.

Wu Tieping, a linguist, once noted in “fuzzy linguistics” that so many words in human language were not precise which were so-called “fuzziness”. Ronald R.Yager held the view that “fuzziness” was devoid of distinct limit between a proposition and its opposition, namely if the meaning of a notion was more faraway from its opposition, it would be more pinpoint, but if it was not , it would be fuzzy.

Also, a Chinese expert Wang Anshi held his own stance that the nature of fuzzy words was of different boundaries if the words reflected features in different limits, and then its meaning is fuzzy.

Different definitions have been made by different specialists. Although no consistent approbation is met by experts, we can still acquire knowledge about theories of fuzzy language and do more researches based on them. Moreover, we can conclude its definition from its superficial meaning as common people do that fuzzy language is inaccurate, imprecise and unfaithful.

3.2 Types of fuzzy language

Fuzzy words refer to those words that make listeners far away from accurate information such as kind of, sort of, etc. They have specific semantic features and pragmatic functions. It is often finite for subjective people to understand the objective world due to their unclear memory about objective mattes, then reflected in language, its meaning becomes fuzzy such as perhaps, about…

Furthermore, from the aspect of pragmatics, words such as approximately, essentially, roughly etc are distinct representatives. But how can we separate pragmatic uses from its semantic functions? Before that, I want to show you some specific types.

3.2.1 Approximators

Approximators can change the structure of sentences’ original meanings, or determine the scope of the change to avoid speaking arbitrarily and talk more objectively .This type of fuzzy language includes two minor species. The first one is adaptors which is a new notion to make listeners hear the concerning topic but not exactly the same, using “sort of, kind of, more or less to make the conversation more suitable.

For example:

A: What about his ears? Is he still draining fluid?

B: It’s just sort of crusted not really draining.(He 140)

The second one is rounders which are words used to measure the distance between the real situation and the conversation, including about ,or so, approximately…Sometimes people want to make conversation less absolute to avoid mistakes, so they use rounders.

For example:

Star Hotel is the largest hotel, which has over 3000 workers.

Some hedges have many kinds of functions which can only be judged by context.

3.2.2 Shields

Shields refer to those words that won’t change the speakers’ original meaning but to add an explanation to the dialogue, expressing the speakers’ or other people’s own attitudes. This kind of fuzzy language includes two types. One is plausible shields including “I think”, “as far as I can tell”, “I’m afraid”, etc.

For example

A: Can you explain this to me?

B: Well, I think you can understand.

Another one is attribute shields and people use these words to express other people’s opinions indirectly such as “according to one’s estimate” or “someone says that”…

For example: According to his estimates, he can do that.

From the above, plausible shields and attribute shields have different functions because plausible shields mainly discuss our own objective states. Rather, attribute shields mainly make use of other persons’ viewpoints to support their own standpoints. When you use attribute shields, you cannot exactly tell the listeners how much you agree with the quotation, but if you want them to know that, you can use more authoritative ideas or just use plausible shields.

3.2.3 Other types

There are some fuzzy words that can refer to anything we cannot name such as thingumajig, thingamy, thingumbob…When you forget something and need some words to replace them, you can use whatsis, whoozit. If speakers cannot directly mention names of other people and the happened things, they can use you-know-who, whatchamacallit and so forth. Some English numbers are fuzzy with no specific references such as “tens of thousands, ten to one. For instance, in this sentence, “I have discussed with you about this thousand times”, “thousand times” mean many times instead of the number “ thousand.”

Now, I can answer the question I have just mentioned. Approximators belong to semantic category because when using them, the sentences’ true-and-false conditions may be changed. However, when using shields, this kind of condition is unchangeable. We all can judge fuzzy words from this method.

3.3 Functions of fuzzy language

In our social interaction, language interaction is a very complex process. A single accurate method cannot meet the needs of communication and it even makes the conversation tedious. So we need fuzzy language to serve as another method. The pragmatic functions of fuzzy language can be discovered in many aspects. Some specific functions are as follows.

3.3.1 Positive functions

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