Summary of Hedge and Modality Study文档格式.docx

1、Vagueness is one of the essential features of natural languages and phenomena of fuzzy language exist everywhere in our daily life. When people cant make sure of what they are saying, they often employ vague language to express their opinions on some occasions, and in this way they can make the comm

2、unication continue smoothly. Since 20th century, researchers at home and abroad have made widespread studies on vague phenomena in language use, and hedges, as an important member of vague language, have also been studied broadly. This article is a summary of current studies of hedge and modality ma

3、inly about the definitions, classifications and pragmatic realization and functions. Literature ReviewIn 1965, Lofti A. Zadeh published an article Fuzzy Sets. Influenced by him, G. Lakoff first introduced the notion “hedge” in his famous article Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic of F

4、uzzy Concepts （1972:195） to mean “words whose job is to make things fuzzier （or less fuzzy）”. Since then, the use of hedge has been studied by many other researchers as an important pragmatic phenomenon from various perspectives. The study shifted to social linguistics, pragmatics, discourse analysi

5、s, and text analysis. Hedges may intentionally or unintentionally be employed in both spoken and written language since they are crucially important in communication. And hedges help speakers and writers communicate more precisely the degree of accuracy and truth in assessments. In reality, hedges a

6、re usually considered as a pragmatic strategy. In recent years, the study of hedge has been greatly enriched in the content and theory, and hedges are also used in different fields, such as politics, laws and business.1. Definition of HedgeDifferent researchers study vagueness in language in differe

7、nt ways, and no congruent definition has been formulated. The following are some definitions from different researchers.The notion of linguistic hedges is first introduced by G. Lakoff in 1972. He defines hedges as follows, “ For me, some of the most interesting questions are raised by the study of

8、words whose meaning implicitly involves fuzzinesswords whose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy. I will refer to such words as hedges ”. They include such expressions as very, rather, more or less, generally, in a sense, a little of, nearly, mostly and so on. Here are some other examples:（1

9、） Johns feet were sort of blue. （2） I think Johns feet were blue. （3） Im kind of glad that I didnt win.（4） We stayed there for almost a week. （5） I think she has the ability to fulfill the task on time.（6） It is said that the sport meeting will be held some day next month.In accordance with Lakoffs

10、concern, however, Brown and Levinson （1987:56） have later defined the term of hedges as “a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or a noun phrase in a set”. This definition regards hedges both as detensifiers and intensifiers.Dealing with hedges from the poin

11、t of view of teaching and learning English as a second language, Holmes defines hedges as devices for attenuating the strength of utterance （1982a） and as a part of epistemic modality （1982b, 1984）.We can see that hedges could be verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and so on. And all these hedges express me

12、anings of unclear or fuzzy, but hedges could also be divided into several categories.2. Classification of HedgeMany scholars study hedges from various perspectives, and they manage to divide hedges in different ways. Prince and his colleagues Frader and Bosk start the research on hedges from Lakoffs

13、 definition of hedges as a device that makes things fuzzy and classify hedges into two categories from the perspectives of semantics and pragmatics: approximators and shields. Approximators are mainly such expressions as kind of, sort of, about, etc. which act on making meaning fuzzier or imprecise.

14、 Shields contain those words or sentence patterns like might, perhaps, I think, etc., which have some connection with speakers assessment of the truth of the proposition and indicate that the speakers are not fully committed to the validity of the proposition they are conveying.2.1 ApproximatorsAppr

15、oximators are always used to affect the truth, so as to give a range or limit the meaning to a certain scope and to make the interpretation closer to the fact. Approximators affect truth conditions of proposition, including expressions such as kind of, a little bit, about, and so on. Approximators c

16、an be subdivided into two types. One is usually applied when a proposition is almost precise but not fully certain by the speaker, such as kind of, sort of, some, very, quite, almost, entirely, etc., which are named adaptors. For example:（7） Im kind of glad that I didnt win.（8） We stayed there for almost a week. （9） His feet were sort of blue.