Fuzziness In News-A Study From Pragmatic Perspective

Since Professor L. A. Zadeh of the University of California in the United States put forward the "fuzzy sets" theory in 1965, a series of new subjects such as fuzzy linguistics, fuzzy mathematics, fuzzy logic, and fuzzy psychology came into bloom overseas. The study on fuzziness by foreign linguists can be traced back to the late 1970s. Research on it in China was started by Professor Wu Tieping's "On Fuzziness" published in 1979. Scholars like Wu Tieping conducted detailed analysis on the fuzzy words and fuzzy semantics. However, fuzzy language in news from pragmatic point of view calls for further research efforts. The role of news as mass media is increasingly realized. Since accuracy is the primary and fundamental requirement in news report, how could fuzzy language exist in it? Based on the Cooperative Principle, Relevance Theory and Politeness Principle, the present thesis ventures to analyze fuzziness that occurs within news reporting, and explore the corresponding pragmatic functions fuzziness may perform through the theoretical presentation and specific corpus analysis.The thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter gives a brief introduction of the theme, the rationale of the study and the structure.In Chapter Two, the thesis expounds the conception of fuzziness and compares some related terms: fuzziness, vagueness, generality and ambiguity, further discusses "Fuzzy Sets" Theory, "Cooperative Principle", "The Relevance Theory" and "Politeness Principle".In Chapter Three, following an analysis of news' features, the thesis explores the inevitability of fuzziness in news reporting in four aspects: 1. The existence of fuzzy-edged things in the physical world; 2. Man's potentiality for fuzzy thinking; 3. Inherent fuzziness in language; 4. Fuzziness in news reporting itself.In Chapter Four, from pragmatic perspective, the thesis, by employing case study, firstly, analyzes fuzzy language in news grounded on Grice's "Cooperative Principle", and demonstrates that the flouting of one maxim by adopting fuzziness is to obey another; Secondly, by using "The Relevance Theory", the thesis distinguishes fuzzy language from loose words in news and arrives at a summary that the difference between the fuzzy language and the loose words relies on the truth-value of the proposition. Thirdly, face-threatening theory in "Politeness Principle" is adopted to probe into the function of fuzziness in maintaining the face of people concerned or reporters as well as mass media. Then, the thesis points out that proper use of fuzzy language in news conforms to the basic criteria of news reporting, strengthen the credibility of news reporting, raise acceptability to readers, enhance self-protecting of reporters, avoid speaking in an absolute way and achieve politeness.In Chapter Five, the thesis analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of fuzziness use in news. The thesis advocates a proper attitude towards fuzziness in news reporting. Although reporters make use of fuzziness, cautions must also be taken to prevent the abuse of fuzziness in news reporting.Thus, the existence of fuzzy language in news is of great importance. Conducting an all-around and deep exploration of fuzzy language in news not only promotes the research of pragmatics but also is propitious for reporters' and mass media's proper use of fuzzy language in news so as to achieve successful communication intention.