| As vagueness exists widely in all aspects of human language, the study of vague language is of great significance. Reference to relevant literatures reveals that many scholars have studied vague language from linguistic aspect, but fewer have tried to carry through study on vagueness in diplomatic discourse at home and abroad, not to say in the setting of People's Republic of China (PRC for short) Foreign Ministry Press Conference. Due to this fact, the author tries to be devoted to the analysis of vagueness in Foreign Ministry Spokespersons' Remarks (FMSR for short), a specific domain of diplomatic discourse.Constructing its conceptual framework basing on Conversational Impliacture(CI for short), Cooperative Principle (CP for short), Politeness Principle (PP for short) and Face Theory (FT for short), this thesis adopts both qualitative and quantitative research method to analyze the use of vagueness in the data collected from the spokesperson's remarks in the press conference of PRC Foreign Ministry (http://www.fmprc.gov.cn). The investigation is mainly concerned with the following three questions: (1) on what language levels and though what language devices can vagueness in Foreign Ministry Spokespersons' Remarks are realized? (2) How do the spokespersons in the press conference maneuver the CP and PP through vagueness to realize their intended meaning? (3) What are the pragmatic effects (i.e. communicative functions) that the vague language in diplomatic discourse produces?The analysis of the collected data reveals that in diplomatic affairs, diplomats deliberately use a lot of vague language for difference purposes: to be self-protecting, to be polite, to be tactful, to create a harmonious atmosphere, to be euphemistic and to be flexible. After all, the diplomats deliberately use the strategy of vagueness to serve their national interests, to realize some special political purposes. So under some condition, they will not always express their opinion directly, nor do they take a stance definitely.As a conclusion, The present research over the vagueness in the FMSR has its sweeping theoretical and practical significance; In theory, it first contributes to the development of the theory of pragmatic vagueness, At the same time, through applying some pragmatic theories to the analysis of diplomatic language, it is confirmed that these theories are applicable to some special text; In practice, it would be beneficial to better interpretation of the spokesperson's remarks, providing a case analysis for the similar spokespersons' remarks on other occasions; and it also makes for better understanding of the vagueness in other text types. In addition, such tentative analysis would shed some light on the development of communicative skills and language teaching. |
