A Comparative Study Of Vagueness In English And Chinese Diplomatic Language

Vagueness has always been a hot topic for linguists, especially for pragmaticians.The previous studies mainly focus on the general analysis of vagueness in diplomaticlanguage, with English and Chinese materials analyzed separately, while comparativestudies are rarely seen.On the basis of Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle, the present studychooses as data twelve English and Chinese diplomatic texts (six in Chinese and six inEnglish) of different topics and types and analyzes the similarities and differences inthe use of vagueness. Through the quantitative and qualitative analyses, we come tothe conclusion that vagueness used in both Chinese and English diplomatic languagesenjoys great similarities in realization. For example, the frequency of vagueness onthe lexical level in English and Chinese materials is much higher than that onsyntactic and cross-textual levels. The major difference is that Chinese diplomatsprefer to realize vagueness cross-textually. As for the violation of CP throughvagueness, the frequency of violation of relevance and quality maxims is almost thesame in the two languages, while violation of manner and quantity maxims occursmore in English diplomatic texts. In terms of observing PP, vagueness used to adhereto the modesty maxim in Chinese materials appears with a much higher frequency,while in the English data vagueness is employed more frequently to obey agreementmaxim.Functionally speaking, American diplomats often treat vagueness as a means forself-protection while Chinese diplomats resort to vagueness to achieve the effect offlexibility. The reasons for the above differences can be ascribed to culturaldifferences, the unique properties of Chinese and English, international influence ofthe country and varied diplomatic purposes and international environments.