The Interpersonal Meaning of Hedges

Yunqian Li

Abstract


Hedges as a considerable fascinated language phenomena and pragmatic strategy, objectively and widely existed in every aspect of human life. Most researches on hedges focus on its communicative functions. Since the complementarity between systemic-functional linguistics and pragmatics received rare attention, this thesis attempts to find relationships between systemic-functional linguistics and pragmatics. Specifically, this thesis aims at exploring the graduation system of hedges from the perspective of appraisal system. This thesis examines the approximators under the graduation system and shields under engagement system. The analysis shows that different kinds of hedges assume different interpersonal meanings and that the interpersonal function presents rare difference in the Chinese and English courtroom discourse. 


Keywords


Hedges; Engagement system; Graduation system; Interpersonal meanings

Full Text:

PDF

References


Hosman, L. A. (1989). The Evaluative Consequences of Hedges, Hesitations, and Intensifies Powerful and Powerless Speech Styles. Human Communication Research, 15(3), 383-406. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1989.tb00190.x

Jucker, A. H., Smith, S. W., & Lüdge, T. (2003). Interactive aspects of vagueness in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(12), 1737–1769. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00188-1

Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave Macmillan.

Novák, V. (2015). Evaluative linguistic expressions vs. Fuzzy categories. Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 281, 73–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fss.2015.08.022

Prince, E. F., & Bosk, C. (1982). On hedging in physician-physician discourse. In J. D. Robert (Ed.), Linguistics and the Professions (pp. 83-97). Alex Publishing Corporation.

Varttala, T. (1999). Remarks on the Communicative Functions of Hedging in Popular Scientific and Specialist Research Articles on Medicine. English for Specific Purposes, 18(2), 177–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(98)00007-6

Zhang, Q. (1998). Fuzziness—Vagueness—Generality—Ambiguity. Journal of Pragmatics, 29(1), 13–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(97)00014-3

Zhu, X. (2007). Evaluative Act, Criteria and Context: Towards a Pragmatic Account of Evaluative Discourse. Foreign Language and Literature Research, 03(04), 14-21.

Zhu, Y. (1996). Complementarity between systemic functional linguistics and Pragmatics. Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 01, 06-10.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/11944

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2020 Canadian Social Science

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Reminder

  • How to do online submission to another Journal?
  • If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

Submission Guidelines for Canadian Social Science

We are currently accepting submissions via email only. The registration and online submission functions have been disabled.

Please send your manuscripts to [email protected]，or [email protected] for consideration. We look forward to receiving your work.

 Articles published in Canadian Social Science are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

 

Canadian Social Science Editorial Office

Address: 1020 Bouvier Street, Suite 400, Quebec City, Quebec, G2K 0K9, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138 
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org 
E-mail:[email protected]; [email protected]

Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture