A Study Of Pragmatic Functions Of Hedges In Political Speeches

Due to the fuzzy characteristic of the objective world and the limitation of human cognitive competence, language, as a reflection of subjectivity acting on objectivity, is inevitably fuzzy to a certain degree. Fuzziness is one of the essential features of language. It widely exists in natural language. As a core member in the family of fuzzy language, hedges are common in any language and play an important role in daily communications. People noted that hedges benefited linguistic expressions a lot and dramatically increased communicative effects. The proper use of hedges can make expressions more polite, flexible and effective, can improve and maintain the interpersonal relationship to achieve the purpose of communications.Recently, the study of fuzziness has drawn a great attention of researchers at home and abroad and the achievements are fruitful. Its research scope covers such areas as advertising discourse, legal discourse and medical discourse, etc. As a sub-project in the research of fuzziness, the study of hedges in political speeches has become a hot topic. On the basis of the previous studies on fuzziness and hedges, this thesis selected35examples of political speeches made by some Presidents and some famous political leaders as the corpora. Based on these selected political speeches, the analysis is carried out under the pragmatic theories of the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle and the Face Threatening Theory, etc. It aims to analyze the distribution and frequency of hedges and their pragmatic functions from the pragmatic angles.This thesis consists of four chapters. The introductory part defines hedges first, and chooses the topic of the study. The first chapter presents the brief introduction to the researches of hedges made by some linguists at home and abroad. The second chapter further introduces some relevant concepts about hedges and the features and classifications of hedges, which gives a certain theoretical guidance for the research. The third chapter illustrates the methodology and data selection to make sure the reliability of the thesis. Chapter four analyzes the distribution and frequency of hedges in political speeches and their percentages to the total hedges. Combining with the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle and the Face-threatening Act Theory, the paper pays its main attention to the pragmatic functions of hedges in political speeches. The related research shows that, for politicians, the correct and full use of hedges can not only maintain the diplomatic manners and self-protections politely, but also can help them make appropriate decisions in the complex and changeable international situationThe research has both theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically speaking, the analysis of hedges in political speeches with pragmatic theories broadens the explanatory force of the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle and the Face Threatening Theory. Practically speaking, the present study may enlighten those people who are political speakers and writers on the one hand; on the other hand it can offer people a better understanding about fuzzy language in political speeches.