An Analysis Of Pragmatic Vagueness In Diplomatic Language From Contextual Adaptation Perspective

Vagueness is an inherent property of language, and a pervasive phenomenon in natural language, which appears to be instantiated in all aspects of language. Language, as a tool for communication, is used in all kinds of diplomatic activities, and plays an important role. Vague language is also widely used in diplomatic activities. The present study is based on Verschuren's Adaptation Theory, which attempts to do a tentative research on the contextual adaptation of diplomatic vagueness in the spokesperson's remarks in the press conference and to find the contextual factors that spokespersons have to adapt to and the process of adaptation.According to the Adaptation Theory, using language is a process of linguistic choice-making. Pragmatic study should be a comprehensive perspective on language. This thesis argues that in press conferences spokespersons employ a lot of vague language for specific diplomatic purposes, which is a process of contextual adaptation. It is a purposeful process of adapting to elements in the mental world, social world and physical world. To put it specifically, the adaptation to the mental world mainly reflects the communication motivation. For example, the spokesperson has to maintain a good self-image before the international community and show politeness to the listeners. In the social world, vague language helps spokespersons to maintain good relationships with other countries and to create a favorable international environment for the development of China. In addition, they also have to make adaptation to conventions of press conferences. In the physical world, the spokesperson uses vague language mainly to adapt to temporal reference and spatial reference.This research manifests that as an effective communicative strategy, vague language plays an important role in achieving successful diplomatic purposes. This research is intended to provide a better understanding of the nature of vagueness in diplomatic language. At the same time, this paper proves that adaptation theory can be used to explain the use of vague language in diplomatic activities. The author hopes that this thesis may provide useful reference for researches on other language phenomena which is also based on the Adaptation Theory.