商務(wù)英語信函中模糊限制語的語用功能分析

1、論文題目The Application and Functions of Fuzzy Language in English BusinessLetterContents1. Introduction42. hedges43. Business English letter in the pragmatic functions of hedges 3.1 The politeness principle 3.2 Compliance theory 4. Pragmatic Analysis of Vagueness in English News4.1 Vague Language in po

2、litical News4.2 Vague Language in Economic News4.3 Vague Language in Social News4.4 Vague Language in Technological News5. conclusionBibliographyThe Application and Functions of Fuzzy Language in English Business LetterWANG YuQian (Tutor: CHEN Ruyun)(College of Continuing Education, Hubei Normal Uni

3、versity, Huangshi, China, 435002)Abstract: Business English letter is the purpose of building and maintaining business relationships, promote trade cooperation and keep a good business relationship, the stand or fall of its expression effect is directly related to the economic benefits of enterprise

4、 or the company. Hedges are widely used in various kinds of business English letters, and effect of hedges in business English communication is of vital significance. Based on the analysis of the business English letter in the pragmatic functions of hedges, points out that the reasonable use of hedg

5、es can make business communication more accurate, more flexible, more polite and more effective.Key words： Business English ； letter hedges ; Pragmatic functions商務(wù)英語信函中模糊限制語的語用功能分析摘 要：商務(wù)英語信函的目的是建立和維持商業(yè)聯(lián)系、促進貿(mào)易合作與保持良好 商務(wù)關(guān)系。其表達效果的好壞直接關(guān)系到企業(yè)或公司的經(jīng)濟效益。模糊限制語廣 泛應(yīng)用于各種商務(wù)英語信函中而模糊限制語對了商務(wù)英語的交際效果TT者舉足輕重的作用。本文根據(jù)分析了

6、商務(wù)英語信函中模糊限制語的語用功能 地使用模糊限制語能使商務(wù)交際更準確、更靈活、更禮貌、更有效。關(guān)鍵詞：商務(wù)英語信函 模糊限制語 語用功能，指出合理The Application and Functions of Fuzzy Language in English Business Letter1. IntroductionWith the rapid development of social economy, business English letters gradually become people in the global economy international trade

7、both sides the important means of written business information communication, through which people can communicate information, contact the business, to discuss trade, consultations, dealing with problems, such as pass the friendship, the writing is critical for business success. The fuzzy language

8、is widely used in many kinds of business letters, the use of fuzzy language in largeExtent, improve the ability of language communication, make business letters more rigorous, accurate, polite, decent, can produce positive effect, so as to achieve good communication with each other, in order to achi

9、eve purpose.Therefore, for the study of fuzzy language in business English letter has important practical significance.2. hedgesVagueness is the essential attribute of natural language. The earliest by the American linguist hedges Mr (Lakoff) in 1972 and began to study. Mr Interpreted hedges "m

10、ake things vague language". Hedges, therefore, refers to people sometimes can't say very precise, even to speak of "fuzzy" in order to achieve some pragmatic purpose of language. The uncertainty of fuzzy is refers to language. "Fuzzy" is not "fog", also is mixe

11、d. Language is an important means of communication art. Fuzzy in the history of art, is the embodiment of the euphemistic. Hedges in business negotiations, political and diplomatic, legal language, news, advertising, etc are widely used, have very strong language application value.3. Business Englis

12、h letter in the pragmatic functions of hedges3.1 The politeness principlePoliteness principle is a basic requirement of business English letter writing. Politeness phenomena as one of basic means to ensure the success of the human communication, cause the social linguistics, pragmatics, psychology o

13、f attention. Famous British scholar leach (Leech) put forward "politeness principles", think that courtesy is guidelines when dealing with interpersonal relationships. The use of the politeness principle of business English letter words has important guiding significance. The pragmatic wor

14、ld of polite phenomenon is one of the biggest impact on the study of face preservation theory. Everyone loves "face", if not in the letter to "face" to the other party, can affect business between us. On the other hand, if you can respect each other's wishes, give each other

15、enough "face", it is easy to lead to trade cooperation. Kasper think, hedges can make the discourse expression has more leeway, reduce the negative impact, have to save face, self-protection and flexible change, etc. Dai Jiandong think hedges said courtesy and respect, and avoid direct con

16、flict, follow the politeness principle and with the aid of fuzzy language said he was not sure attitude or indirectly expressed their views, in order to achieve the purpose of the moderate tone.Degree of hedges is commonly used in business English letter, by the degree of change will have meaning of

17、 modifiers, increase or decrease, such as: a little, almost, kind of, more or less, quite, sort of, etc. . For example, Your reply is a little newest on sentence mean "you reply a bit late" suggests that the other party has missed opportunity. But the use of a little, soften the tone of th

18、e strong, make them aware of their mistakes, but also give each other face, to be more polite, and make it possible to continue to trade in the future. How to make up for this type of injury the recipient face behavior will decide whether the trade both sides continue to cooperate. Writing English b

19、usiness letter must pay attention to the politeness principle and politeness principle in different culture. This is indispensable in business English letter notice, also must follow the pragmatic principle.3.2 Compliance theoryVerschueren "pragmatics throughout" the compliance theory in p

20、ragmatics provides a comprehensive and scientific research perspectives, especially to the interpretation of adaptation, is of great theoretical significance, so to speak. Compliance theory is that: when people are not willing to do more accurate use of fuzzy language, namely intentional use, such a

21、s: roughly, approximately, the about, around, the or so, the at further, etc. Scope of this kind of hedges can estimate of the things to make a kind of uncertain, or elementary views are put forward. Reason for using these hedges, the writer didn't want to put the words too the dead, in order to

22、 avoid accident objective situation. Writers deliberately using fuzzy language is for the sake of achieving communicative intention, in order to adapt to different contexts and psychological emotional factors. According to resilience theory, fuzzy language is the result of the writer select the lang

23、uage and language adaptation. Hedges in business English letter has the appropriate message,improve the elasticity of business language and polite pragmatic effect. Such as: Our samples will arrive about 2 nd September.我們的樣貨大約 9 月2號到達。）Due to objective factors, the seller can not be sure what time t

24、he arrival of the goods.One thousand from the arrival of the goods on time, probably caused economic losses to the buyer. But "about" there's room for manoeuvre, the buyer will consider, flexible adjustment, at the same time, the seller also protects oneself, to avoid unnecessary dispu

25、tes. Visible, the use of hedges in business English letter makes the business communication more accurate and decent.4. Pragmatic Analysis of Vagueness in English NewsIn the present study.vague language is displayed within the theories so as to demonstrate its application and realization in English

26、news report.In this section,our attention is focused on the adaptability and pritieal Discourse Analysis of pragmatic vagueness in English news.4.1 Vague Language in political NewsAs is mentioned above. pragmatically.concepts such as human right,freedom,democracy. and so on are often vague . The und

27、erstanding of these concepts differs greatly in the speaker 's political stand and viewpoint. Thus, political news can not do without vague language. for some political terms embody vague concepts.The example of news report go as follows : "Both side have had full and talk on a wide range o

28、f subjects of mutual interest".(China Daily,May 20,2004)In this case, the expression "full and frank" and "a wide range of" is the vague expression,adapting to both the joumalist' s and the two parties ' acceptance.The readers and both sides only focus on the informa

29、tion they need or are interested in,so the unnecessary details should be generalized in news report.Thus vague language,especially hedge is the best choice.Both sides have had talks on positive aspects and negative aspects,and talks on which they may agree with each other, or disagree. In the news,

30、the vague words"full and frank" generally modify the"talks" without reaching a conclusion and specifying the way they talked.Vaguenesshere adapts to saving face of both sides without telling theprocessof talks.The hedge" a wide range of" subjects may involves some sensi

31、tive topics.or the headache issues such as political and economical interest.Some isssues are so confidential that they are not proper to be released.This is what accurate language can not achieve. but they are not achieve. but they are not proper to be released. This is what accurate language can n

32、ot achieve.but vague language works so well.adapting to keeping secrets of the talks and avoiding negative effects.4.2 Vague Language in Economic NewsIn economic news report,vague language can achieve some pragmatic functions through the proper choice of words to adapt to the acceptanceof both the a

33、ddresser and the addressee.and to aim at winning the objective and credibility if economic events.e.g. The plan places a heavy emphasis on fixed and mobile high-speed internet services.a market that has recently become massively competitive with rivals rushing to undercut each other in recent years.

34、(The New York Times,January 30 ,2008)Vague words of time always show the uncertainty of data when the events take place.The hedge"recently"and"in recent years" conveys a vague concept oftime.Becauseof the vaguenessof people' s mental worlds,the vague words of time adapts to p

35、eople' time awareness and expressing habits in daily communication.People have got used to expressing the latest time as"recently"but not the concrete time.The vague expressing "massively competitive" is a vigorous modifier.adapting tostrengthening the fierce degree of compet

36、ition.Hedge is always applied as an adverb modify and explain the determined upper limit of following word.Such vague words are the utterances used by speakers to adapt to making subjective judgments or indirect evaluations.4.3 Vague Language in Social NewsSocial news had a close relationship with p

37、eople s daily life, so vague lanoccurring in social events enables addresses easy understand an accept.e.g. Beijing subscribes of a popular China Mobile service will not pay for in caming calls from within the city stating today as a part of the telecom giant's latest move to woo customers with

38、price cuts The ministry of informationindustry said last month that it would urge the nation' s mobile operators to further stash charges and adopt the caller-pay-only mode across the nation in two years. "the new pohcy will benefit quite a few users" said Liu Zhe. an analyst with Anal

39、ysis International. a Beijing-based IT consultancy firm. pointing out that some of its package deals already offer free incomingcalls.InFebruary.China Mobile Launched different serice packages.costing from 99yuan to 299yuan in Beijing. and more than half of its customers noe use packages that don

40、9;t charge for incoming calls.(China Daily Wednesday,May 23,2007)Vague Language functions so well in certain context.Vague Language is interdependent on and to the context. So Learmed from the above example. under the context of price cuts on mobile service in Beijing.vague language is applied to ma

41、nifest the great benefits its subscribers get.The vague expression "further slash charges" indicates the trend of further price cuts in Mobile service without specifying the exact price cuts.for it is a prediction made according to the trend. Thus,due to the reporter' s limited ability

42、 to the world.the vagueness here adapts to the objectivity of news information.In the sentence "the new policy will benefit quite a few users",the hedge"quite a few" adapts to the proper choice of words.for there is no need to find out the number of the users who really get benef

43、its from the new policy,considering the timeliness of news report. The hedge proves that there are surely a countless number of users who benefit from the policy,which attracts reader's especially the user's attention and adapts to their acceptance.Thehedge "more than half"adapts t

44、o another strategy of vague language-adapt to reliability and objectivity of the news information.When reporting news.using the exact number of figures seemsso wordy and verbose,however,hedges in this way can achieve accuracy and adapt to reader's cognitive habits as well as the requirements of

45、news Language.4.4 Vague Language in Technological NewsWith the develoment of science and technology,a great number of new-born technological terminologies have sprung up which only some scientists and scholars can figure out.In this sense,vague language is an effective device to be resorted to help

46、readers understand the new technological information.e. g Microsoft and Yahoo have discussed possible options over the past year. the newspaper said.Microsoft could sell its MNS online net work to Yahoo and take a minority stake in the internet portal.it said.(New York Times Online, May 4,2006)In above example, the vague expression "possible options" is a workable device here."Possible option" means some options are feasible while others do not work. In technological field, the discussion between two corporations is believed to be confidential, and the de