The Study Of Pragmatic Vagueness In Obama's Speeches By Applying The Adaptation Theory

Vagueness, as a hot topic in the linguistic field, is not just a property of our natural language. When it is deliberately picked up by the language user in the interaction to realize certain communicative purposes, it can also serve as a communicative strategy to facilitate our daily communication. This communicative strategy is named as Pragmatic Vagueness. Pragmatic vagueness pervasively exists in people's communication in every field. Taking the American president Obama's speeches as the research data, this thesis gives a case study of the pragmatic vagueness used in these speeches. In order to give a comprehensive and dynamic interpretation of pragmatic vagueness, Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory is employed as the overall theoretical framework.The central viewpoint of Verschueren's Linguistic Adaptation Theory is that language should interadapt to context. So four representative speeches delivered by Obama under four typical contexts are carefully chosen as the research data. According to the view of variability, negotiability and adaptability in Linguistic Adaptation Theory, this paper aims to answer the following questions: ?What are the specific linguistic forms of pragmatic vagueness used by Obama? ? How has the adaptation process of pragmatic vagueness been realized in Obama's speeches? ?What are the major functions of pragmatic vagueness in Obama's speeches?The findings of the quantitative study indicate that the various realizing forms of pragmatic vagueness, which can occur at any level of language, provide Obama a large repertoire from which he can make suitable linguistic choices to serve his different communicative requirements; besides, some long-established pragmatic principles provide him with flexible ways to realize the adaptation between linguistic forms and contexts. Based on the prerequisite provided by the above two, Obama can flexibly choose different linguistic forms of pragmatic vagueness to adapt to different contexts, which include the physical, social and mental world. Finally, with the help of pragmatic vagueness, Obama's speeches successfully realized the functions of protecting himself, protecting the interest and dignity of his country, the function of achieving politeness as well as the function of adding persuasive power to the language.This comprehensive and dynamic analysis of pragmatic vagueness in Obama's speeches can not only prove Linguistic Adaptation Theory's powerful explanative strength on pragmatic phenomena, but also can deepen reader's understanding of political language. The author hopes that the present study can make Linguistic Adaptation Theory be used to explain more linguistic phenomena, and at the same time can encourage readers to use pragmatic vagueness strategy with awareness to serve their communicative needs, thus improving their communicative skills.