摘要

模糊性是自然语言的基本属性。作为语言的一部分，数字不可避免地具有模糊性。本文通过对英汉谚语中的模糊数字的调查分析，探究常用模糊数字在英汉谚语中的语用功能，并归纳模糊数字在英汉谚语中产生的原因，从而探讨模糊语在语言表达和理解方面的重要意义。以促进人们对英语语言的进一步了解和提高对目标语文化的敏感性，增进跨文化的交流。

关键词：模糊性；英汉谚语；数字；语用功能

Abstract

    Fuzziness is a common feature of natural languages, so it’s inevitable that numbers, as a part of languages, are with fuzziness. Through the investigation and analysis of the fuzzy numbers in Chinese and English proverbs, this paper studies   pragmatic functions of fuzzy numbers and summarizes the causes in Chinese and English proverbs to explore the significance of fuzziness in the expressing and understanding of languages. It contributes to further understanding of the English language, improving the sensitivity of the target language culture and promoting cross-cultural exchange.

Key words: fuzziness; English and Chinese proverbs; numbers; pragmatic functions                                                                                                                                                      1. Introduction

It is a common phenomenon of different languages in the world that numbers are used to represent the quantity. And with the development of human society, numbers are correspondingly well developed in languages. When people cannot use the precise numbers to express what they think in everyday life, the fuzzy numbers, as an important part of language, come into being. The phenomenon of fuzzy numbers is not a defect of language development; on the contrary, it is a progress and summary in the process of language development. It is the fuzziness that makes information transferred more fluidly and colorfully.

1.1 Introduction of fuzzy language and proverbs

Zadeh's fuzzy set theory was formally introduced into the field of language study in 1965. And then the concept of "fuzziness", which is more used in linguistics instead of that in mathematics and logic, has spread widely. It was not until 1972 when G.Lakoff, the famous American scholar of generative semantics, made a speech at an international lexicography conference in New York that fuzziness began to attract attention from all over the linguistic world. He applies the theory of 'fuzzy set ' to natural language data. Different from a traditional concept of meaning, semantic fuzziness holds that a linguistic unit has no clearly defined boundary. In other words, the semantic borders of these units are fuzzy. Fuzziness, in today's linguistic field, is generally regarded as " a term derived from mathematics and used by linguists to refer to the indeterminacy involved in the analysis of a linguistic unit or pattern".