Apprentice” From Adaptation Perspective-A Case Study Of American Reality Show

Pragmatic vagueness has increasingly drawn vast attention since Zadeh published his paper “Fuzzy Sets” in “Information and Control” in 1965. In verbal communication, people purposefully employ obscure expressions to achieve some specific communicative goals, which thus give rise to pragmatic vagueness.Researches on pragmatic vagueness are ubiquitous in various domains, including education, vehicle, technology, advertisements, discourses analysis and so on. With regard to pragmatic vagueness in linguistics, however, most studies are rendered at the semantic level, while studies from pragmatic perspective occupy a small proportion. With the thriving and flourishing study of vague language, pragmatic methodologies and approaches are gradually applied to its research. Reality show, as a carrier of a culture, draws a large proportion of audiences' attention, especially among the youngsters. To some extent, it reflects interpersonal relationship, cross-cultural communication, people's mental, social and physical world, communicative discourse in the real-life stuffs. Therefore, some scholars have delved further into various linguistic phenomena in reality show from the perspectives of semantics, rhetoric, cognitive linguistics, etc.Based on the conspicuous and fruitful findings and achievements, this paper tends to analyze pragmatic vagueness in the American reality show—“The Apprentice”(the third season). The current research is striving to explore pragmatic vagueness within the theoretical framework of the Adaptation Theory. During the investigation of the pragmatic vagueness in the reality show, this paper raises two research questions as follows:(1) How is pragmatic vagueness realized in “The Apprentice”?(2) What are the communicative functions of pragmatic vagueness in “The Apprentice”? The findings and results indicate that pragmatic vagueness is a common linguistic phenomenon in the American talent reality show that further proves the omnipresent and prevailing existence of pragmatic vagueness. The qualitative analysis obviously reveals that pragmatic vagueness has a large distribution and definitely implies different communicative functions. Meanwhile, it is tested that the pragmatic vagueness in “The Apprentice”, which results from the common cognitive environment and the understanding of the abstract concepts, is transformed and conceptualized by the concrete things in the real world. Under the perspective of Adaptation Theory, the examination of the significance of pragmatic vagueness behind the reality show can help people better apprehend the communicative functions in the entertaining discourses. The study produces both theoretical and practical significance to promote cross-cultural communication and deepens pragmatic understanding of the job program. Based on the analysis, the results will yield their culture and ideology in order to establish a scientific and efficient discourse mechanism that helps people successfully attain ideal and satisfying jobs. Therefore, the enlargement of this study will not only fill in gaps in the emptiness of pragmatic vagueness in the job program but also augment the scope of empirical research on pragmatic vagueness.