浅析模糊语在跨文化商务英语交际中的语用功能(2)
In 1965, Lotfi Asker Zadeh (1921), a professor, University of California, published the paper “Fuzzy Sets” that marked the appearance of a new branch of linguistics--fuzzy linguistics or fuzziology. Vague language, as an important feature of language, is widely used in cross-cultural communication for some purposes. With the coming of globalization, people from different cultural background have had more chances to contact and communicate with each other. But they come from so many different countries have different value systems, social norms, and cultural contexts. So how to realize vagueness in intercultural communication? And how does the culture influence the vague language usage in intercultural communication?
Vague language as a kind of efficient strategy, has been widely adopted to fulfill certain communicative purposes. Successful communication can not achieve without the addresser’s clear express and the addressee’s correct interpretation, the same as in business. Meanwhile, it is those differences that make vague language become a difficulty in cross-cultural communication. Communication failure happens when we use vague language incorrectly. This thesis aims to help non-native speakers make correct use of vague language by analyzing the reasons for the pragmatic failure of the application of vague language in cross-cultural business communication. And the study of vague language in cross-cultural communication may be of practical significance in that it is likely to provide guidelines for people to have a better understanding of vague language, not only its literal meaning but also its referential meaning and implication, and consequently, help people to adopt vague expressions appropriately in cross-cultural communication. By showing the pragmatic functions of vague language in communication, we can draw a conclusion: vague language does play an important role in communication, not just in cross-cultural communication.
II. Vague Language and Business English Communication
2.1 Definition of Vague Language
Vagueness is a natural and essential property of human language, and vague language is a common phenomenon in communication. Although vagueness is largely a neglected area of study in academic writing, it has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years. In this chapter several most noticeable studies will be reviewed. Mainly, the definitions of vague language given by previous researchers will be discussed.
But how can vague language be defined? As to the definition of vagueness, now there has been no generally accepted definition of the term “vague language”. Because different linguists have given their different statements, but no one can give a unanimous definition of vagueness. They have made efforts to give a definition, but often find themselves confused in distinguishing vagueness and other terms, such as fuzziness and ambiguity.
In dictionaries, vague is an adj. from the perspective of the part of the speech. The meaning of vague is almost the same in different dictionaries, which refers to “not clear in a person’s mind; or not having or giving enough information or details about something; or suggesting a lack of clear thought or attention” (Oxford Advanced learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary2009 2229). As the important part of vague language, according to NTC’s American English Learner’s Dictionary, “hedge’’ refers to “a statement that protects against a risk or danger ; a statement that equivocates. Or to make a statement in an evasive way to avoid committing oneself to a certain belief or decision” (430). So vagueness is the most common word which refers to all kinds of uncertain, indefinite and unclear things.
And over the past thirty-odd years, linguistic vagueness have been viewed from different angles by researchers. In 1923, Bertrand Russell wrote his famous paper named Vagueness, in which he pointed out, “all language is more or less vague” (Russell 1). Pierce is often considered as the originator of the notion of vagueness in language, although, as we will see, English linguist S.Ullmann dates it rather earlier. He once pointed out the vagueness of language by saying, “If one looks more closely at this vagueness one soon discovers that the term is itself rather vague and ambiguous: the condition it refers to is not a uniform feature but has many aspects and may result from a variety of causes. Some of these are inherent in the vary nature of language, whereas others come into play only in special circumstances” (118).
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