Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: Vagueness as a universal phenomenon can be found in verbal communication, especially in daily English. And vagueness turns out to be the nature of language. The purpose of this paper is to conduct the pragmatic analysis of vagueness in verbal communication. The process is analyzed by giving several examples, specially giving some dialogues to figure out several functions of vagueness. The result demonstrates that in verbal communication, there is more or less vague language, and sometimes only vague language can reach speakers’ inside purpose, thus can make conversation more successful and meaningful. So the conclusion comes out that vagueness should be used any time under any circumstances to bring out success in social communication.

Key words: vagueness; daily English communication; pragmatic analysis

摘要：模糊语作为一种普遍现象，在言语交际中常出现，也是语言的本质。本论文针对分析言语交际中模糊语的语用功能，通过几个实例分析论证了模糊语的功能。最后得出结论模糊语在一般情境下可以使交际更成功，并指出模糊语言在语交际中有积极也有消极作用，大多时候也只有模糊语能表达对话者的意图，使对话更成功和有意义。

关键词：模糊语，英语日常交际，语用分析
 
1. Introduction
Vagueness is one of the most intrinsic and important features of natural languages. Many people think good usage of language involves precision and clarity. And they believe vagueness would destroy communication and it should be avoided. However the wide use of vagueness in communication strongly suggests that it is an advantage. It would make communication more flexible and provide people more ways to manipulate language with various communicative purposes. Nowadays vagueness of language has evoked increasing interesting in linguists and would be found in many fields.
In this thesis, vagueness of language in daily English communication is investigated. The range of this thesis is limited to the pragmatic analysis of vagueness in verbal communication. The general objective of the study is to make people know vagueness can reach the mainly purpose in our daily conversation. How to use vagueness and how to understand vagueness is very important in communication so as to get the true purpose and to make conversation successful.
The structure of the thesis is as follows .It is about the general pragmatic functions of vagueness. It will refer to the main functions of vagueness, ranging from giving the right amount of information to deliberately withholding information. Chapter Four is about the positive and the negative pragmatic functions in daily communication. And several examples are proposed to prove the idea.