摘 要

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Research purpose 2

1.3 Structure of the thesis 2

2. Literature review 3

2.1 Overview of fuzzy language 3

2.2 Previous research at home and abroad 5

2.2.1 Previous research abroad 5

2.2.2 Previous research at home 6

3. The pragmatic analysis of fuzzy language in international business news 8

3.1 The main forms of fuzzy language in news 8

3.2 Pragmatic functions in international business news 9

3.2.1 Ensuring the reliability and delivering information more efficiently. 9

3.2.2 Showing the politeness 12

3.2.3 Adapting to the readers’ and journalists’ mentality. 13

3.3 The comparison between international amp; Chinese business news 15

3.3.1 The similarities 15

3.3.2 The difference 17

4. Conclusion 18

References 20

Acknowledgments

It is very important for me to complete my graduation thesis. In this process, I have encountered difficulties more than once, and I have also received help from others more than once. Therefore, I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to those people who offered me with selfless support.

First, I want to thank my supervisor Professor Chen without whom my paper must not be completed on time and in good quality. He gives me great help before, during and after the writing process, including helping me to modify the topic, answering my questions, providing valuable suggestions and polishing my paper.

Secondly, I want to thank my teachers. Thanks to their unselfish and tireless teaching and imparting knowledge over the past four years, I have a solid writing foundation to complete my graduation thesis.

Next, I’m grateful to some websites, such as China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang Database, for providing me with very useful and valuable literature materials.

Finally, my sincere gratitude also goes to my family, roommates and friends for their warm encouragement and comfort when I am anxious about writing the thesis and for helping me to regain my confidence. I am also grateful to them for giving me unlimited tolerance, support and love when I am immersed in stress and fail to control my temper.

Abstract

Fuzzy language is a kind of linguistic phenomenon that frequently occurs in people’s daily life, and it has been widely employed in many fields, including diplomacy, media and literature. Nonetheless, the study on its pragmatic functions in business news is still in the ascendant.

This thesis randomly selects examples with fuzzy language from the business sectors of three authoritative news websites: BBC, VOA and People's Daily, and makes a pragmatic analysis of them in combination with theoretical frameworks, including cooperation principle, politeness principle and adaptation theory. The conclusion shows that journalists like to employ fuzzy language for ensuring the reliability and delivering information more efficiently, showing the politeness and adapting to readers and journalists’ mentality. Additionally, through the comparison between internationalamp; Chinese business news, this thesis indicates that Chinese business news is more inclined to use fuzzy language in titles to attract readers' attention. Furthermore, this paper is composed of four parts. Chapter one serves as the brief introduction. Chapter two has a review of the definition and applications of fuzzy language and the relevant literature both at home and abroad. Chapter three offers the main forms of fuzzy language in news and discusses its pragmatic functions with examples from both English and Chinese business news in great detail. Lastly, in chapter four, the research results and limitations are presented.

This study aims to help readers understand the meanings of fuzzy language in business news better and conduct pressmen to use it more felicitously in order that the quality of international business news can be improved. What’s more, it would facilitate following studies on the use of fuzzy language and provide implications for relevant research in the future.

Keywords: fuzzy language; pragmatic functions; international business news

中文摘要

模糊语是人们日常生活中不可避免经常出现的一种语言现象，并且被广泛地应用于外交、媒体和文学等众多领域中。然而，关于商务新闻中模糊语的语用功能的研究仍方兴未艾。

该研究在三个权威性的新闻网站BBC, VOA和人民日报的经济板块上随机选取例子，并结合合作原则、礼貌原则及顺应论角度三大理论进行语用功能分析。结果显示：新闻工作者使用模糊语来保证信息的可靠性和更高效地传递信息、表示礼貌以及顺应读者和记者的心理。同时，通过国际和中文商务新闻之间的对比，该研究指出，中文商务新闻更倾向于在标题中大量使用模糊语言来吸引读者的视线。此外，该文由四个部分组成。第一章是简介。第二章回顾了模糊语的定义与发展，和国内外相关的文献。第三章介绍了新闻中模糊语的主要形式，并结合中英商务新闻的例子对其语用功能进行了细致的探究。第四章交代了研究结果与存在的缺陷。

该研究旨在帮助读者更好的理解经济新闻中模糊语言的意义并指导新闻工作者们更恰当地使用模糊语，进一步提高国际商务新闻报道的水平。此外，它将促进关于模糊语使用情况的研究，并给未来的相关研究提供一些启示。

关键词：模糊语；语用功能；国际商务新闻

Introduction

1.1 Research background

As the economic globalization and culture exchanges continue to deepen, communications and trades among different countries around the world have been intensified. During this process, business news plays a more and more vital role in everyone’s daily life. Business news is a sort of objective news specializing in reporting economic events and business trends, which has always been regarded as one of the main platforms for human to receive information about economic and trade developments.

On the one hand, as a branch of English news, international business news which pursues concision, efficiency, clarity and coherence is also a valuable and meaningful research topic. (Wang, 2010) It contains international business knowledge, conventions and practices, linguistic rhetoric phenomena and much other useful information. Besides, it not only provides people with the latest global business news but also helps people make judgments and investment decisions in their favor according to the development of the age as soon as possible. Thus, journalists should especially pay attention to authenticity, objectivity and reliability of what they write and where the information comes from.

On the other hand, as a new branch of linguistics, fuzzy language intrigues a lot of scholars. In the practice of business journalism, fuzzy language is inevitably used for both subjective and objective reasons, such as its own characteristics and advantages. And what is more important is that appropriate use of fuzziness and precision at the same time can make news reports closer to the truth.

Research purpose

This thesis will take the application of fuzzy language in international business news as the research object, summarize its usages in international business news, and analyze its pragmatic functions and so as to improve the application level of the fuzzy language in business news and allow readers to understand why journalists need to use fuzzy language.

1.3 Structure of the thesis

This thesis is made up of four parts. In the first chapter, the research background, research purpose and the structure of the thesis are illustrated. Chapter two concentrates on the literature review in which the definition and applications of fuzzy language and the previous research relevant to it inside and outside are provided. Chapter three serves as the main part of the paper, which includes three pragmatic functions of fuzzy language with the analysis of some real business examples from BBC and VOA. It also offers a comparison of the functions between international business news and Chinese business news with examples from People’s Daily. Chapter five is the conclusion of this thesis. It is a review of what findings we have got and a reflection of the limitations. It also makes some suggestions for the further research.

Literature review

2.1 Overview of fuzziness

Israel Sheffler (1979) from Harvard University points out in Beyond the Letter that fuzziness is a universal characteristic of descriptive terms. It not only has a fundamental conflict with the standard logic but is also tied up with various forms of indeterminacy. The definition proposed by Sheffler (1979) indicates that the fuzziness of descriptive terms is caused by the unclear nature of the boundary.

The definition is that a fuzzy class is one whose boundaries are not clearly defined. And the linguist Ullmann (1962) ascribes its generation to four points :