Pragmatic Study And Teaching Of Hedges

Hedges, as a special part of language form in English, have attracted people's attention for a long time. Their functions on one hand change the truth value of the sentence and on the other hand make things fuzzy and people's utterance euphemistic and decent. Based on E.F.Prince's study of hedges, hedges are classified into two categories: shields and approximators. The former usually modifies the whole sentence and is called sentence hedges. The latter modifies an individual element of a sentence and can change the truth value of the sentence, so it is called element hedges. The study of hedges has two stages: the early stage focuses on meaning, mainly carried by Zadeh and Lakoff; the present study emphasizes its pragmatic study.Context has important significance for the use and understanding of hedges. Jef Verschueren divides context into communicative context and linguistic context. Communicative context comprises language users, the mental world, the social world, and the physical world. In communication, three worlds of the utterer and the interpreter are not identical. Therefore, how to understand hedges correctly and use them appropriately lies on communicative context.The aim of this thesis is to help L2 learners know how to use hedges and improve their pragmatic consciousness through the study of hedges' meaning and pragmatic functions. Furthermore, emphasis on teaching pragmatics in L2 teaching is stressed.The pragmatic features of L2 learners' utterance are mainly embodied in four aspects: choice of speech, semantic form, semantic content, and language structure. As emphasized in this paper, understanding and using hedges pragmatically greatly depend on context, so improving pragmatic consciousness of L2 learners can help them learn to use hedges. On the basis of theories of acquisition of second language pragmatics, the author of this thesis points out four ways of teaching pragmatics to L2 learners: improving language proficiency, selecting good teaching materials, instructing appropriately in classrooms, andencouraging positive pragmatic transfer.Furthermore, suggestions for teaching pragmatics not only apply to teaching hedges but also improve the language proficiency of L2 learners dramatically.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One gives a brief introduction of hedges.Chapter Two analyzes hedges in the perspective of meaning. In terms of syntactic functions of hedges, hedges can be classified into two categories: sentence hedges and element hedges. Moreover, hedges are analyzed based on Leech's seven types of meaning.Chapter Three makes a close study of hedges in communicative context. Based on Verschueren' views about communicative context, understanding of hedges involves psychological conditions of interlocutors, social occasions/environments, and temporal and spatial deixises. All these elements in communication exert influence on using and understanding of hedges.Chapter Four discusses teaching hedges with pragmatic principles. Improving pragmatic competence is an efficient way to help L2 learners know how to use hedges appropriately. The value of this thesis is that the author points out her own suggestions for teaching pragmatics.Chapter Five summarizes this thesis.