Fuzziness In News Language And Its Adaptability Analysis

Fuzziness, as intrinsic property of natural language, appears to be an extremely pervasive phenomenon in language communication. Many scholars both at home and abroad have studied it from a variety of perspectives and made great achievements. However, we find that the pragmatic studies of fuzzy language are mainly conducted with the help of Grice's Cooperative Principle, Leech's Politeness Principle or Wilson's Relative Principle. As far as we know, the research on fuzzy language from the perspective of Verschueren's Adaptation Theory is little so far, much less on fuzzy language in news report. The thesis attempts to make a tentative analysis of motives as well as the functions of the employment of fuzzy news language with Verschueren's Adaptation Theory as the theoretical framework.The thesis reviews the development of the studies both at home and abroad of fuzziness and fuzzy language, and explains some related concepts based on the previous studies mainly with the aid of Zhang Qiao's discovery. In addition, by comparative analysis we believe that the roots of fuzziness in language do not lie in objective factors nor in subjective factors, but is the result of the collision of those factors. News report, as a mass media, plays increasingly important role in people's daily life. Since accuracy is the most important requirement for news report, can it permit the existence of fuzzy language in news report? After making a scrutiny into some news reports on science, economics, sports, and politics selected from different agencies, the thesis assure us of the extensive existence of fuzzy language in news report. Then, what are those factors which motivate the employment of fuzzy language? Verschueren's Adaptation Theory may offer sound explanation. Verschueren holds that language use is a process of making choice. Whenever we use language, usually we make continuous linguistic choices, consciously or unconsciously. The reason why we are capable of making proper choice in language use lies in variability, negotiability and adaptability of language itself. He regards adaptability as a higher-order notion, which is the core of the theory. According to the Adaptation Theory, the choice-making is adaptable to social context involving mental world, social world and physical world.With Verschueren's Adaptation Theory as the theoretical framework, and by detailed analysis of innumerable news reports, the present research concludes that the employment of fuzzy language in news reporting is the result of choice-making, which is adaptable to the mental world of both journalists and readers (including editors), the social world in which social constraints play important part, and the physical world mainly of time of space. In addition, the author points out that the employment of fuzzy language may help to increase creditability, save time, protect the press, promote vividness, and avoid negative outcome of news reporting.Through the discussion, the author suggests that Verschueren's Adaptation Theory can well explain the linguistic phenomenon of fuzzy language in news report, and it provides us with a new perspective in pragmatic interpretation of language use. However, we can't consider is as a master key to interpret any language use. If so, it may arouse a suspicion of excessive application.