商务英语中模糊语言的语用功能论文

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【Abstract】Vagueness is one of the fundamental features of language, which is widely used in human communication. Vague language in Business English and its pragmatic functions are of paramount significance in actual business communications. To use vague language appropriately and reasonably creates positive pragmatic effects, which can make business communication more appropriate, more accurate, more flexible, more courteous and more vivid, so as to realize the business communication purposes and to achieve better business communication effects. With an analysis of the pragmatic functions in Business English, it’s in the hope that it will help readers and business people involved better understand vague language, therefore to use vague language with appropriateness, flexibility and effectiveness.
  【Key words】Business English; Business Communication; Vague Language; Pragmatic Functions
  

1. Introduction

  Vagueness is a constitutive feature of natural language and is also a universal phenomenon in the real world and human cognition. Business English is thought to be clear and concrete, but vague language is frequently used in Business English, which plays an important and irreplaceable role in daily communication for reflecting the objective world and expressing human thoughts. Daitz (1956) declares that without vagueness, there could be no effective communication. However, due attention hasn’t been paid to vague language and its pragmatic functions compared to other fields like political discourse, literary works and news reports. With the rapid development of international trade and business communication, a systematic analysis of vague language in Business English is needed. Pragmatics does not confine itself to merely describing how people use language, but also concerns itself with how to help them become better users (Mey, 1994). It is a new approach to study vague language and its pragmatic functions in the framework of pragmatics.
  

2. Definition

  People he started comprehensive study of vague language since American scientist Zadeh proposed the technical term fuzziness in his paper on fuzzy mathematics in l965. However, even up till now, there has been no generally accepted definition of the term “vague language”. Due to the term “vagueness” is itself rather vague; many definitions he been given in the past researches.
  Crystal (1991) proposes that fuzziness refers to the indeterminacy involved in the analysis of a linguistic unit or pattern. C.S. Pierce (1902), the originator of the notion of vagueness in language provides us with this paragraph: