| Vagueness represents a key feature of the supremacy of human beings which permeates our daily communication. Be it in the form of literature, poem, text book, TV drama and newspaper, be it in the context of physics, psychology, philosophy and news, vagueness is an essential characteristic of the words; and the sentences. Generally speaking, accuracy is regarded as the first and most important one of the essential news story elements, since news is a timely, objective and fair-and-square reflection of the changing of external world. However, it does not mean that accuracy is not compatible with vagueness in news all the time. Vagueness widely occurs in English news and understanding,and it requires readers to obtain not only lexical and grammatical knowledge, but also pragmatic knowledge. This thesis attempts to analyze the adaptations of vague language in English news to the communicative contexts from the point of view of Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory. In contrast to those earlier studies, in this thesis, vagueness refers to a communicative strategy in English news reporting, which is carried out by the manipulation of vague language to achieve certain communicative goals, that is, adaptation to the mental and social worlds. This thesis sheds some light on that the proper use of vague language can successfully report the news to people, and meanwhile it provides guidance for the participants and helps them achieve proper understanding of the target language.This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 is an introductory remark, stating the significance of writing this thesis, data collection and research method. Chapter 2 presents a general view of basic notions in vague language study: fuzziness, vagueness, ambiguity and generality, and another term"fuzzy set theory". Chapter 3 lays the theoretical framework for the present study, in which the Adaptation Theory as well as its value and status in the present study discussed. Chapter 4 analyzes the patterns of vague language in English news in particular. Chapter 5 interprets vague language in English news from the perspective of pragmatics, namely, the demonstrations and the application of Adaptation Theory. And Chapter 6 is the conclusion of the thesis, discussing the summary and limitations of the research. |
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