A Contrastive Study Of Hedges In Chinese And American Leaders’ Remarks In Press Conferences From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

As is known to all, fuzziness is regarded as one basic feature of human language. Since American scholar Lakoff put forward the concept of "hedge" in 1972, hedges have been regarded as an important embodiment of language fuzziness and have been studied by scholars at home and abroad from various aspects. Initially, researches about hedges are mainly conducted from the semantic perspective and it is not until recent years that an increasing number of scholars turn to conducting studies from the perspectives of pragmatics, discourse and social linguistics and even some contrastive studies spring up in large numbers. Various types of discourses become the object of hedging study and political discourse is no exception too. Because of its distinguished language features as well as its close relationship with national interests, political discourse greatly appeals to many scholars. For example, words spoken in press conferences are not always as exact as we think, instead hedges are often used for the purpose of answering questions in an appropriate way.Though numerous studies have been conducted to analyze leaders’utterances, at present there is still no contrastive study of American and Chinese leaders’ remarks in press conferences. Therefore, on the basis of Prince et al’s classification of hedges, this thesis, on the one hand, aims to find out the similarities as well as differences between American and Chinese leaders’ remarks through a quantitative analysis. On the other hand, the underlying reasons for the similarities and differences as well as the interpersonal meanings of hedges will be analyzed in a qualitative way. Generally speaking, the following questions will be answered:(1) Is hedge a frequently used language device in Chinese and American leaders’ remarks in press conferences? (2) Are there any similarities and differences in the use of hedges between Chinese and American leaders’ remarks in the aspects of number, frequency, category distribution and lexical preference? If there are, what are they? (3) What are the underlying reasons? (4) How do Chinese and American leaders realize the interpersonal meanings through using hedges selectively?With an aim to answer the above questions in an objective way, all the data are transcribed from some famous political websites in America and China. There are altogether 15 transcripts of American press conferences, with a total word number of 46094 and 10 transcripts of Chinese press conferences with a total word number of 49784. Then according to Prince et al’s classification, the author identifies all the hedges and calculates the number and frequency of four types of hedges in ALR (American Leaders’ Remarks) and CLR (Chinese Leaders’ Remarks) respectively. Then on the basis of all the data, a contrastive study of English and Chinese hedges is conducted. The results indicate that American and Chinese leaders all like to use hedges in their answers to reporters. However, there are some differences in the number, frequency and distribution of four types of hedges. American leaders prefer to use plausibility shields while Chinese leaders like to use adaptors most. Apart from these, there are also differences in the lexical distribution. At last, under the framework of appraisal theory, the author summaries the interpersonal meanings of hedges as follows:(1) Being responsible information senders; (2) Showing modesty and respect to others; (3) Avoiding embarrassment and conflicts.The present study is of some value. Firstly, it can raise people’s awareness of hedges and enhance people’s understanding of state leaders’ languages. Secondly, it can facilitate cross-cultural communication. At last, it is help to oral interpretation.