| With the socio-economic development and people‘s increasingefforts in the pursuit of beauty, cosmetic products, as a kind of lifenecessities, have come into thousands of people‘s life. Thus, cosmeticspecifications have become not only an important way for consumers‘deeper understanding of the cosmetic products, but also an importantmeans for cosmetic manufacturers‘publicizing their products.Vagueness, a basic feature of natural language and also an importantlinguistic strategy, is widely utilized in cosmetic specifications andperforms important functions. According to Adaptation Theory,information selecting and writing in linguistic communication should beadaptable to various contextual correlates. Thus, under the guidance ofAdaptation Theory, this thesis plans to make a qualitative analysis of thelinguistic realizations of vagueness in English specifications of cosmeticproducts at the lexical, syntactical, rhetorical and pragmatic levels, theadaptation to the communicative contextual correlates of mental world, social world and physical world, and also its main functions and effectsas well as negative aspects and coping strategies.The analysis of this thesis reveals that: Firstly, vague language hasrich expressive forms at different linguistic levels of Englishspecifications of cosmetic products and can perform important roles;Secondly, the proper use of vague language in English specifications ofcosmetic products largely depends on the adaptation to the specificcommunicative contextual correlates, i.e., the adaptation to thecommunicators‘mental world, social world and physical world; Thirdly,vague language is a double-edged sword, having both positive andnegative aspects. Thus, it calls for manufacturers‘proper use andconsumers‘correct understanding of vagueness to bring its positiveeffects into full play. In a word, in view of the importance of vaguelanguage in English specifications of cosmetic products, manufacturershave to adapt fully its vague features to the communicative contextualcorrelates and make the specifications as vivid as possible, andconsumers have to know the relatively precise meanings of the vague expressions to understand the information of the cosmetic productsefficiently. |
