A Study Of Vagueness In Language Use: The Linguistic Adaptation Perspective

Nowadays, more and more researchers have paid attention to the study of pragmatic use of vagueness in language. However, few studies on vagueness in language use are done from a general and dynamic point of view. Verschueren (1999) in his Linguistic Adaptation Theory (LAT) proposes that when people use language, they are making linguistic choices, consciously or unconsciously, for language internal (structural) and for language external reasons, which is a general and dynamic view for the study on pragmatics. Vagueness in language use, as a kind of linguistic phenomena in human communications, can be studied from this pragmatic perspective with certainty. So the aim of this thesis is to study the existence of vagueness in language use from a dynamic perspective and to study the use of vague language from a general perspective (cognitive perspective, linguistic perspective, social perspective, cultural perspectives and so on).For the consideration of the research characteristics and purpose, the research method of this thesis is intended to be a qualitative one. The examples for this research are mainly collected from books, articles, thesis on vagueness written by either foreign authors or Chinese authors and even from real lives.Based on Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory, conclusions of this study can be made that the existence of vagueness in language use is the result of"natural selection"in language system itself by the factors in language external contexts and that the use of vague language needs to adapt to contexts, structure, dynamics and salience. In one word, this study tends to build a dynamic and general model to analyze vagueness in language use, which can also be treated as a kind of application and development of Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory (LAT).However, this study has its limitations. For example, the study might be more or less inexhausitive and the analyses might not be comprehensive or systematic enough and so on. Therefore, these aspects leave much for further study.