A Study On Pragmatic Vagueness In Diplomatic Discourse

Vagueness constitutes the essential features of language at least for two reasons. First of all, either defining a concrete object or describing an abstract event, each proves to be an operation where objective existence is made abstract by linguistic symbols. Secondly, language is known to be a conventionalization about the meaning this language represents among the people who speak it. Both the abstraction and the conventionalization create vagueness. In a broad sense, accuracy is relative whereas vagueness is universal and absolute.In recent years, interest has arisen in the use of vague language and meaning. Much of it suggests that vagueness appears in a great deal of language use and this should be paid more attention to. As vagueness exists widely in all aspects of human language, the study of vague language is of great significance. The writer focuses on language materials of selected diplomatic discourse to study the linguistic realization of pragmatic vagueness in diplomacy. In this thesis, Verschueren's linguistic adaptation theory will be employed to analyze pragmatic vagueness in diplomatic discourse.Chapter 1 explores the notions of diplomatic discourse and vagueness. Firstly, the definition of diplomacy is given. And then the definition of vagueness is given. The writer discusses the features of vagueness. Lastly, the writer holds that diplomatic vagueness describes a special type of language. This chapter will focus on how vague language is purposefully used in diplomatic discourse, and how it relates to its settings.