A Pragmatic Study of Hedges in Political Speeches from the Perspective of Adaptation Theory: A Case Study of Theresa May’s Speeches顺应论视角下政治演说中的模糊限制语语用研究―以特雷莎•梅的演说为例文献综述

 2023-04-21 09:12:06

文献综述

2. Literature review2.1 Definitions of Hedges and Hedging In linguistics, there are several items about the concept hedge and hedging. Some definitions about this term are provided based on the early contribution by Lakoff (1972). It is Lakoff who first introduced the item hedge as a linguistic term.However, Zadeh (1965) and Weinreich (1966) should be mentioned here before introducing the contribution of Lakoff in detail, for they two are the most important predecessors in hedging research. Although the term hedge and hedging were not used directly, both Zadeh and Weinreich noticed the right phenomena of this term. Zadeh (1965) points out that certain classes, such as animal, which have been supposed and created as having stable membership criteria, have a continuum of classification grades. Weinreich (1966: 163), labels hedges as metalinguistic operators: For every language metalinguistic cooperators such astrue, real, so-called, strictly speakingfunction as instructions for the loose or strict interpretation of designator. Just like mentioned above, the term hedge and hedging was introduced first by Lakoff in his article Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concept. In his non-constructive, synchronic study of written or oral English, Lakoff gave definitions about as words whose job it is to make things more or less fuzzy. Later, the definition of hedges has been given by Brown and Levinson (1987: 56) as a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or a noun phrase in a set; it says of that membership that is partial or true only in certain respects, or that is more true and complete than perhaps might be expected. However, a lot of users of this term limit it only to express that the match between a piece of knowledge and a category that is less than perfect (Chafe, 1986). Zadeh (1972) analyzed hedge after Lakoffs definition. Zadeh analyzed some simple hedges like very, more or less, much, slightly, essentially, and some more complexed like frankly, technically, theoretically from the viewpoint of semantics and logic. Zadeh believed that hedges are operators that act on the fuzzy set, representing the meaning of their operands. Hedges vary in their dependency on context.2.2 Classifications of Hedges and Hedging As illustrated above, the abundant literature illustrates a profound and great interest in the present subject or topic. About the classifications of hedges the author will adopt the one by Prince and his co-authors. (1982). Prince et al. (1982) argue that at least there are two sorts of hedging devices. One is called approximator that affects the truth conditions of proposition. The other is shield that does not affect the truth condition of the propositional content but responses the degree of speakers commitment to the truth-value of the whole proposition conveyed. Furthermore, the two key categories are further divided into some subcategories.2.3 Previous Studies on Hedges Abroad The research of hedges can be dates back to 1965. L.A. Zadeh is the first linguist who proposes fuzzy theory in his article Fuzzy Sat, which gives a theoretical foundation for future research on vague language and also makes the research of language get into a new era. From his point of view, a fuzzy set is a class of objects with a continuum of grades of membership (Zadeh, 1965), which originally belongs to a mathematical term.George Lakoff is the first linguistic scholar to propose the term hedge to the linguistic field. He selects a semantic perspective to analyze the hedges. He claims (1972: 97) that natural language is true or false to certain extent or true in certain respects or false in other respect He makes a comparison between examples with hedge regular and examples without it. One of the examples is shown:1) Esther Williams is a fish. 2) Esther Williams is a regular fish. Obviously the first sentence is wrong. However, the second sentence which adds the word regular is right.But the second sentence cannot be understood from the literal meaning. It means Esther Williams swims like a fish, fast and freely. In a word, the second sentence implies that the actions of Esther Williams swimming have some Characteristics of fish. The word regular makes the second sentence right and precise. Furthermore, Lakoff concludes that the truth value of an utterance depends on the connotations rather than the surface meaning of a word or a sentence and he also illustrates that the semantics is closely related to pragmatics and they cannot be Master of Arts Thesis separated because the context is very necessary and important to understand the real meaning of a word or a sentence which might not be found in a dictionary. Another scholar, Rosch, makes vital contributions to the field of studying hedges.In 1973, Rosch explored hedges from the perspective of cognitive psychology. He chooses the cognitive angle to analyze semantic prototypes, stating that natural language themselves possess linguistic mechanisms for coding and coding its gradients of category membership (Rosch,1973). From his point of view, the prototypes are considered as natural languages and have the function of ranking the members in the category. Later on, the perspective of researching hedges is shifted to the pragmatic perspective. In 1975, in his article Hedged Performatives, Fraser studied modal verbs which belong to hedges by using the pragmatic theory. He claims that modals and semi-modals can be used to help the speakers escape from the responsibilities. After that, Fraser also probed politeness and mitigation functions of hedges in 1980. In his opinion, when performing a speech act in order to express some desire, such as Id like to suggest that, it can be regarded as a hedged performance in the speech act. Furthermore, Fraser discussed discourse markers of hedges in 1990. Meanwhile, Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) propose politeness principle, considering that hedges can be used as a strategy to prevent disagreement and a negative politeness strategy by which the speakers or hearers can save their face. Kasper (1981) views hedges as down grader of mood marker sand the motivation of employing hedges is to show politeness. Prince et. al. (1982) analyze hedges from the spoken physician-physician discourse and they clarify hedges: approximators and shields. Flowerdew (1991) discusses hedges from the point of view Speech Act Theory and he separates indirectness and politeness from hedges. Franken (1997) discusses hedges from Relevance theory.2.4 Previous Studies on Hedges at Home In China, Wu (1979) is the first linguistic scholar who conducts a series of researches on fuzzy linguistics. In 1979, he published the first article called A Tentative Exploration of Fuzzy Language, which created a new era of studying fuzzy linguistics in China. Professor Wu approves Zadehs fuzzy-set theory and he pays his attention on fuzzy words. Later on, he wrote some articles about fuzziness and gathered these articles together nominated FuzzyLinguistics in 1999. He also classifies hedges into three types which are based on the words they modify, parts of speech, and lower or upper limit of hedges.He (1985) publishes an article which gives a systematic description of the classifications of hedges abroad. He claims that the classification of hedges which are employed in verbal communication is the same as Princes classification of hedges. And he adds that approximators are geared to semantics and shields are geared to pragmatics. This is the first article about the function of hedges from pragmatic view in China. Later on, more and more researchers explore the application and function of hedges in different kinds of articles, such as scientific articles, academic articles, medical articles, everyday communication, etc, from a pragmatic perspective. Sun (1986) studies the influence of hedges to conversational implicature. He argues that hedges can weaken or cancel conversational implicature and this is the third reason which can cause the cancelability of conversational implicature. Li (1995) and Feng (1999) both focus on the use of hedges. Huang (2011) discusses hedges used in the speeches of American presidents in stylistics from pragmatic perspective in order to have a deep and detailed understanding of political speeches. Zheng and Zeng (2012) think that the pragmatic functions of hedges are usually restricted by contexts, which is able to promote effective communication.2.5 Pragmatic functions of Hedges in political discourse In politics, hedges obviously strengthen the expressive and communicative effects. Watts believes that the notion of politic behavior has been suggested to account for the insight that all verbal interaction involves the negotiation of the coherence and equilibrium of the social group, within which the sacred nature of the social person can be projected. (Watts et al.,2005: 57). Therefore, proper use of hedges to some extent in political discourse will highlight the function of coherence, politeness, and flexibility of expressions, and meliorates the relationship among different political groups. However, there are also some gaps and limitations in the former study.Firstly, there are different theoretical perspectives on the analysis of Theresa Mays political speeches, such as conceptual metaphor theory, evaluation theory, ideological phalanxes and so on. However, the research on the adaptation theory is almost a blank field. Secondly, there are several researches about Theresa Mays Pragmatic Function analysis of discourse markers, However, the research on hedges is almost a blank field. Therefore, this study from a new perspectiveadaptation theory perspective, a new research objecthedges, will fill the research gap to a certain extent.

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