Pragmatic Vagueness Dynamics Of Cross Cultural Perspective

Vagueness, as an attribute of natural language, is studied from various aspects in different approaches. This thesis probes into vagueness in language from pragmatic perspective and focuses on the intentional use of vagueness as a communicative strategy, which is labeled as "pragmatic vagueness".In light of the previous studies and the major principles in pragmatics, the present study intends to give a detailed description of people's deliberate use of pragmatic vagueness, of the positive role it plays in daily conversations, and the mechanism of pragmatic vagueness in intercultural communication. Based on Jef Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory, the author probes into the variability, negotiability, adaptability and rewardability of pragmatic vagueness, as well as the psychological preparations and various linguistic structures on lexical, syntactic and discourse levels. The author also makes a distinction between general strategy and intercultural strategy. Four intercultural strategies are discussed, i.e. reducing the acculturation contradiction of pragmatic vagueness, comparing vague expressions and strategies in two languages, mitigating the negative effects of interlanguage and establishing acculturation-and-identification model.