Fuzzy Phenomenon In Speech Communication Research

Since there appeared the fuzzy theory, vagueness in language has been studies mainly from two aspects: static vagueness in language and dynamic vagueness in language. The previous study of dynamic vagueness in language is supplemented and extended in this paper.Some scholars have done deep research in vagueness of language in verbal communication, yet mainly from the perspectives of the addressor and verbal means and method. In this paper it is explored from the perspective of the addressee's comprehension of the conversation, proving that vagueness is not produced merely from the addressor but also from the addressee's comprehension. As for the perspective of the addressor, unmotivated vagueness is also studies in this paper, apart from motivated vagueness, which most scholars put emphasis on in discussion. Also there are some supplementary to the verbal means that the addressor uses to make it richer. The details are introduced as follows:Vagueness is divided into unmotivated vagueness and motivated vagueness according to the degree of the addressor's consciousness. The former is divided into three kinds according to the cause: 1. the addressor thinks there is no necessity to express clearly; 2. the addressor has no enough understanding of what he or she would like to say; 3. Some fuzzy words are more suitable in certain context. Motivated vagueness generally appears out of the need of delivering information, the language's appropriateness and humor effect. There are five situations where delivers information with the vagueness verbal means or method: 1. the addressor would like to deliver nothing to anyone; 2. the addressor would like to deliver some special message to the addressees; 3. the addressor deliberately tells implied information to side participants; 4. the addressor purposely delivers message of more than two levels; 5.the addressor tends to reduce the responsibility for the information he delivered. Apart from the situations listed above, sometimes the addressor uses the pragmatic vaguess just to get the graceful or humorous effect in his or her expression.The addressor expresses his or her idea with language as medium, so the addressee has to make analysis and deduction on the conversation's meaning. Generally speaking, the addressor conveys two meanings: the surface meaning and implied meaning. In unmotivated vagueness the surface meaning and implied meaning are usually the same, so it's enough for the addressor to only understand the surface meaning to acquire the whole meaning of the conversation. On the contrary, in motivated vagueness, the two levels of meanings are different, the addressee needs to comprehend conversation's surface meaning and consequently deduct its implied meaning according to his or her personal life experience and conversational context. As a result, there are four situations where the addressee comprehends a conversation: 1. being able to comprehend both the surface meaning and implied meaning; 2. being able to comprehend the surface meaning but not the implied meaning; 3. being able to comprehend the implied meaning but not the surface meaning; 4. being able to comprehend neither the surface meaning nor the implied meaning.Finally, on the basis of previous study, the three factors influencing the addressee's comprehension of conversation's meaning are deeply discussed in this paper: 1. the addressee's comprehension of the context. Here the context, in a general scope, refers the conversation itself, the environment and setting where verbal communication occurs, common knowledge, the two communicative parties' relationship, etc.; 2. The two parties' individual difference, for instance, value of life, language habit, personality, etc.; 3. The addressee's attitude. He will never understand the conversation's meaning if he is indifferent to conversation.Vagueness in the verbal communication is reflected in the language form. The addressor realizes vagueness through linguistic internal system, including phonetics, lexicon and syntax, and conversation. The application of vagueness in phonetics and sentence patterns are not so much as lexicon, which makes use of generality, fuzziness and accuracy of words' meaning, and vague restrictor, deictic word, etc. in conversation, vagueness is realized through uncertainty of conversation's meaning and indirect verbal behavior, zero-form language and the use of rhetoric.The study in this paper widens the research area of vagueness in verbal communication and provides theoretical guide for the communicators to deliver or comprehend vagueness in communication.