A Study Of Hedges In Political Speeches From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Vagueness is the basic property of language, and it pervades in language. Thehedge, as a typical class, was first introduced by Lakoff in 1972 based on the studiesof fuzzy language, and the words are defined as those that make things fuzzy or lessfuzzy. Afterwards it was brought into linguistic research fields. Since the concept wasintroduced, scholars have made a large number of studies on hedges in differentdiscourses from different perspectives. Looking back to the current studies on hedgesboth at home and abroad, the author finds that a few study the hedges in differentdiscourses, such as in the academic, the media, the news, etc., but there are fewstudying hedges in political speeches especially in inaugural speeches. The researcheson hedges are also made from different perspectives. At first the researches on hedgesare from the semantic perspective, and then with the development of pragmatics anddiscourse analysis methods, more and more scholars began to study on hedges from apragmatic perspective. Most of the researches on hedges from the perspective ofpragmatics are mainly based on some famous pragmatic theories such as the theory ofconversational implicature, Grice’s cooperative principle and politeness principle. Theadaptation theory is a new branch in pragmatics which is put forward by Verschueren.It is a theory which introduces a new and comprehensive perspective on hedges study.According to Verschueren (2000), it is an approach which takes into account the fullcomplexity of cognitive, social and cultural functions, which is different fromtraditional pragmatics. Based on the adaptation theory, the author makes an analysisof hedges in inaugural speeches.The present study chooses all the 60 inaugural speeches of 44 USpresidents as the data resources and mainly analyzes hedges from a pragmaticperspective under the adaptation theory. Inaugural speech is a political speech whichhas its own features. Verschueren refers to language use as a process of makingcontinuous choices. The choices are made to adapt to the context and to satisfy thecommunication needs. Hedges in inaugural speeches are a careful choice by the speaker to carry on a successful communication with the hearers. The thesis mainlymakes an analysis from the perspective of adaptation to the context which includesthe mental world, the social world and the physical world. Through the detailedanalysis, it can be found that using hedges is an effective language strategy chosen bythe speaker to adapt to the mental world which includes emotions, beliefs andmotivations or intentions, the social world which includes social setting andinstitutions, the Constitution and values, the physical world which includes time andimpreciseness. The thesis gives a conclusion that using hedges is a result of bothlinguistic choice and adaption. Verschuren’s adaptation theory can be used atheoretical framework to explain the hedges in speeches and hedges can be used as alanguage strategy in speeches to satisfy the speaker’s communication need. Theanalysis and the findings can be of some significance for the future research onhedges especially hedges in political speeches. Moreover, the research can also givesome clues to those who do their utmost to understand and make English speeches.The research on hedges will make the speaker’s intention better understood, and itwill also make the language users choose hedges carefully during making speeches.The thesis only makes an analysis of hedges in inaugural speeches from theperspective of adaptation to context. In the future study, some more factors related tocontext should be considered.