Redundancy In Diplomatic Language And Its Function

This paper does a comprehensive data-based study on the redundant information in diplomatic language through the integrated appliance of pragmatics, social linguistics, social psychology and speech communication. The redundant information in modern diplomatic language refers to the unnecessary or irrelevant information provided by foreign ministry spokesmen when responding to some journalists or diplomats’sensitive questions.The source derives from the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman’s regular press conference speeches from January2010to September2012, which can be downloaded from the official website of Chinese foreign ministry. It focuses on the analyses of the classification, function and using motivation of redundant information in modern diplomatic language through description and explanation.This paper is divided into five parts:first of all. this paper introduces previous studies on redundancy and modern diplomatic language by scholars at home and abroad. Secondly, it introduces the research methodology including:research questions, source and classification of data as well as the statistics of data. Thirdly it classifies the redundant information in modern diplomatic language into euphemism redundancy, fuzzy redundancy and virtual redundancy. Then it analyzes the functions of redundant information in modern diplomatic language from conversation controlling, emphasizing, protecting, as well as mental adjusting these four parts. Among them, the protecting function is elaborated mainly from safeguarding the national image, keeping the country’s secrets and macro protection of the national policy. While the mental adjusting function will be analyzed from three perspectives: political mental adjusting, social mental adjusting and cultural mental adjusting. Finally, this paper discusses the motivations of using redundancy from four parts: national interests, highlighting, confidentiality and humor. All these studies not only belong to the linguistic research category, but also are involved in sociology, psychology and speech communication etc.Therefore, the study of redundant information on diplomatic occasion such a particular context is of great significance. On the one hand, it helps people have more in-depth understanding of the redundancy; On the other hand, it enriches relevant studies on redundant information in diplomatic language.