A Comparative Study Of Hedges In Chinese And American Spokesmen's Remarks At Press Conferences

As the core members of fuzzy language,hedges have brought about the widespread attention at home and abroad.In recent year,there appear a great number of researches on hedges from the perspectives of pragmatics,discourse and social linguistics,among which hedges contribute to the diplomatic language.However,the present studies mainly concentrate on the pragmatic analysis of hedges in Chinese or English diplomatic speeches.The comparative study of hedges between Chinese and American spokesmen has not been thoroughly analyzed.Therefore,this thesis,on the basis of Varttala's classification of lexical hedges,taking 111 Chinese and American remarks at press conferences in English version as the research object,is conducted from quantitative and qualitative approaches through two comparable corpora with the research instruments including Microsoft Excel Office and Antconc.3.2.4.Consequently,the frequency,category distribution features and the underlying reasons of lexical hedges in Chinese and American spokesmen's remarks has also been calculated and analyzed.The results show that: firstly,Chinese and American spokesmen both frequently use lexical hedges in their remarks and the five categories of Varttala's classification are widely used.Secondly,lexical hedging verbs are the most frequently identified in two spokesmen's remarks and lexical hedging nouns are the second most frequently used.Thirdly,the use of lexical hedges is higher in American remarks than that in Chinese remarks in frequency and in the width of lexical hedging items.Fourthly,the frequency of hedges is different in diplomatic remarks between Chinese and American spokesmen.To be more specific,the lowest frequency of hedges in Chinese remarks is modal auxiliaries,while the lowest frequency of hedges in American remarks is adjectives.In view of what have been mentioned above,two reasons are summarized as follows.First,based on the different social cultures of two countries,Chinese and American spokesmen respectively follow different pragmatic expressions in the use of hedges.Second,due to the fact that spokesmen have the responsibility to safeguard national political interests with different diplomatic policies,on behalf of their different political positions,spokesmen need to employ proper words and sentences at press conferences.The present study is of some value.It aims to enhance people's understanding of lexical hedges in spokesmen's diplomatic remarks at press conferences and raise people's awareness of hedges.It hopes to help diplomatic analysis in the process of diplomatic teaching from multiple perspectives,and further promote Chinese translation work for Chinese diplomacy.