模糊语在国际商务谈判中的语用功能研究

1、TQSSl On Pragmatic Fun cti ons of Vague Lan guage in Intern ati onal Busin ess Negotiati on Abstract In gen eral, la nguage in bus in ess n egotiati on is believed to be precise, but actually, pragmatic applicati on of vague ness is a com mon phe nomenon in bus in ess n egotiati on. As early as 1965

2、, Zadeh (1965)ssued a “ fuzzy ,sand ”r the first time it brought the“ fuzzyo”cept into Ian guage areas. Bus in ess n egotiati on is a complex process. Nowadays, vague Ian guage in bus in ess negotiation is commonly used. The thesis tries to study the application of vague Ianguage and its fun cti ons

3、 from the pragmatic point of view in intern ati onal bus in ess n egotiatio n. Through an alysis, it mani fests that n egotiators can employ vague Ian guage such as vague words, hedges, and syn tactic vague ness to satisfy certa in com muni cative purposes, which reveals the fun cti ons of vague Ian

4、guage, namely being flexible, giving right amount of information, being persuasive, self-protecti on and being polite. Appropriate use of vague nessca n help n egotiators to com muni cate much more smoothly and achieve their goals successfully. Vague Ian guage in bus in ess n egotiati on provided th

5、e basis for negotiation theory and linguistic methods to resolve problems in negotiation. Key words: vague Ian guage; vague ness; pragmatic fun cti ons; bus in ess n egotiati on 2 人们普遍认为商务谈判中的语言应该是准确简洁的，而不是模糊不清的。可事实恰恰 相反，模糊语言确实广泛存在于商务谈判中。早在 1965年，查德发表了模糊集，首次 把“模糊”的概念引入了语言领域.但事实上，从语用学角度研究商务谈判中的模糊语言 还

6、有待于进一步的探索。 商务谈判是一个涉及诸多方面内容的复杂过程。 现在，模糊语广泛应用在商务谈判中。 本文旨在从语用学角度研究模糊语在国际商务谈判中的应用及其作用。通过分析研究，发 现谈判人员在谈判过程中可以使用模糊语言，例如模糊语，模糊限制语，和句法模糊，达 到一定的交际目的，即增强谈判语言的灵活性；传达适当的信息量；增强说服力；自我保 护以及礼貌功能。 适当的运用模糊语有助于谈判者交流更加顺畅，从而成功地实现目标。模糊语在商务 谈判中提供了谈判理论的基础还有解决形式语言中的方法。 关键词：模糊语；模糊；语用功能；商务谈判 TQSSl On the Pragmatic Function of

7、 Vague Lan guage in Intern ati onal Busin ess Negotiati on 1. Introduction Si nee Chi na joined WTO (World Trade Orga ni zati on), i ntern ati onal bus in ess has already bee n developed dramatically. How to take good adva ntage of Ian guage in the bus in ess n egotiati on is a serious questi on to

8、be discussed. Vague Ian guage is a com mon phe nomenon and occurs freque ntly in Ian guage com muni cati on. More and more people use it in bus in ess occasi ons, so that, it plays an importa nt role in intern ati onal bus in ess n egotiatio n. Lan guage in bus in ess n egotiati on is believed to be

9、 clear and accurate lest disputes would arise from in exact ness. However, vague Ian guage exte nsively exists in bus in ess n egotiati on and it renders a new vision for the research. Channell (2000:3) argues that “vagueness in Ianguage is n either all bador all good What matters is that vaguela ng

10、uage is used appropriately. That is the key to use vague Ian guage in bus in ess n egotiatio n. This thesis con sists of five chapters. Chapter one gives a brief in troduct ion of the whole thesis and the structure of the thesis will be introduced. Chapter two is the review of previous studies about

11、 bus in ess n egotiati on and vague Ian guagea nd in this chapter, some related terms of vague Ianguage will be discussed as well. In chapter three, it presents pragmatic realizati on of vague ness in bus in ess n egotiati on, and an alyzes the reas ons for the existe nce of vague ness in bus in ess

12、 n egotiati on. In chapter four, the author shows the pragmatic fun cti ons of vague ness in bus in ess n egotiati on by using many examples in the real occasion. Finally, there is a conclusion of the whole passage, and it will show the core findings of the research. 17 2. Literature Review Vague ne

13、ss is a very com mon phe nomenon in com muni cati on. However, little atte nti on was paid to it until Peirce (1902), the originator of the notion of vaguenessin Ianguage, and he focused his attention on natural language. In this chapter, previous studies related to vagueness will be reviewed. First

14、ly, previous studies of bus in ess n egotiati on will be an alyzed. Secon dly, it will study the previous studies of vague Ian guage. Fin ally, a nu mber of terms related to the research will be clarified and expla ined, such as vague ness, fuzz in ess, gen erality and ambiguity. 2.1 Previous studie

15、s of business negotiation Busin ess n egotiati on become a hot topic for the researcherswith the developme nt of economic globalization and world integration. Numerous books and articles have been written about bus in ess n egotiati on. They have studied bus in ess n egotiatio n from differe nt pers

16、pectives, such as culture, strategies, interpretation, so on and so forth. The author realizes that making a summary on that topic is very essential for the present study. Lewicki (1994) gives us a survey of bus in ess n egotiati on. He states that researchers have in creas ing take n in terdiscipli

17、 nary approaches to un dersta nding, in terpret ing, and in tegrat ing n egotiati on theory and practice. And these in terdiscipli nary efforts have wide n the scope of the n egotiati on phe nomenon, they cover psychology, sociology, econo mics, an thropology, political scie nee, and mathematics, wh

18、ich have all take n differe nt theoretical and con ceptual perspectives on n egotiati on. And these famous literature materials on bus in ess n egotiati on are as follows: Marketi ng by Agreeme nt: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Business Negotiationsby McCall.J.B. Successfullnternational Business Nego

19、tiation by Robert T.Moran Cross-Cultural Bus in ess Negotiati on sby Hendon, Don ald W., Rebecca An geles and Paul Herbig (1996); Negotiation by Roy Lewicki (1994); I nternatio nal Bus in ess Negotiatio n: Actors, Structure/Process, Value by Peter Berton, Hiroshi Kimura Intern ati onal Negotiati on

20、by Jeffrey Edm und Curry (2004). Fuzz in ess Vague nessGe nerality Ambiguity by Qiao Zhang (1998). Yu Yong Xue Gai Lun by He Zira n (2003). All of them have made huge con tributi ons to the study of vague Ian guage and bus in ess n egotiati on. It will be referred in the following thesis. In China,

21、especially after Chinaentry into WTO, more and more Chinese scholars realize that it is of great importance to make an ESP (English for Special Purpose) study on international bus in ess n egotiati on. Zeng Wenxiong (2002) discusses the pragmatic strategies in bus in ess negotiation, i. e. polite ap

22、propriateness,implicative and euphemism, humor, vagueness.And effective methods are put forward to raise learners pragmatic awareness, and to develop their pragmatic strategy. Che n Xirong (2001) states the n ecessity for the bus in ess n egotiators to apply the pragmatic strategy in bus in ess n eg

23、otiati on and the positive pragmatic strategy in the n egotiati on is also discussed from three aspects: polite ness and appropriate ness maxims, tactful and humorous, and implicit and vague expressi ons. 2.2 Previous studies of vague language Crystal and Davy (1975) study vague ness from a pragmati

24、c point of view. They point out that the choice of a vague item is deliberate to maintain the atmosphere. Channell (2000) describes the pragmatic use of vague Ian guage in detail. As to the reas ons why people use vague Ian guage in com muni cati on, she an swers that polite ness is one of the reas

25、ons. In China, the con cept of pragmatic vague ness is adva need by Prof. He Ziran (1996). I n his opinion, vaguenessis rather a pragmatic phenomenon than a semantic one and hence head vacates con duct ing a dyn amic inv estigati on from the pragmatic perspective on the basis of affirm ing the achie

26、veme nts made by the static researches. His early explorati ons on pragmatic vague nesse ncompassesall the vague con cepts that cannot be an alyzed by two-valued logic, in cludi ng fuzz in ess, in determ in acy, probability, ambiguity, and gen erality, etc. Differe nt types of pragmatic vague ness,

27、such as con ti nuum type, categorical type, appraisal type, and hedg ing type are also prese nted. He argues that pragmatic vague ness can make uttera nee more appropriate and more tactful in certa in con texts. To sum up, although there is no gen eral agreeme nt about what vague Ianguage is and wha

28、t definite role it can play in discourse, all the above studies commonly show that vague Ianguage mainly functions pragmatically. Language only has meanings by virtue of its use” (Cha nn ell, 2000:29). 2.3 Clarification of some related terms In fact, there is no un ified opin io n on the differe nce

29、s among the four lin guistic con cepti ons, i.e. vague ness, fuzz in ess, gen erality and ambiguity. Lots of lin guists made great efforts for this purpose only to find they were con fused as to dist in guish vague ness from the other three similar terms, which all share the same characteristic of i

30、n determi nacy. I n this thesis, the author prefers to use the concept of vagueness because it is an intrinsic characteristic of natural language which is superior to the other three concepts of connotation as well as denotation. 2.3.1 Vague ness versus fuzz in ess Strictly speak ing, fuzz in ess is

31、 disti net from vague ness;however, vague nessa nd fuzz in ess have bee n used in tercha ngeably by some researchers.The term fuzzy is derived from fuzzy mathematics developed by Zadeh who suggests that fuzz in ess can be formally han dled in terms of a fuzzy set, a class of en tities with a continu

32、um of grades of membership. But other lin guists like Russell, Black, Ullma nn. Burns, Chann ell, Deese, etc. All use the term vague ness in stead of fuzz in ess. Actually, fuzz in ess differs from vague ness in that it is not simply a list of possible related in terpretati on derived from a vague e

33、xpressi on. Fuzz in ess is in here nt in the sense that it has no clear-cut refere ntial boun dary and is not resolved with resort to con text. Fuzz in ess is one of the n ear synonyms of vague ness,a nd both are equivale nt in a broad sen se. Fuzz in ess emphasizes un clear boun daries of category

34、ide ntifiers while vague ness may refer to all kinds of un certa in, in defi nite, un clear thin gs. In some sen se, the term vague ness covers the meaning of fuzz in ess, so in this thesis vague ness is used in stead of fuzz in ess. 2.3.2 Vague ness versus gen erality Generality is different from v

35、agueness. Zhang Qiao (1998) states that “ the meaning of an expression is general in the sense that it does not specify certain details; generality is a matter of unspecified. ”For example, the meaning of “ John has gotctegree ” general because it does not specify whether Joh n has got an art degree

36、 or a scie nee degree, or a degree of master or doctor. The expressi on does not give such certa in details. 2.3.3 Vague ness versus ambiguity Compared with other similar terms, ambiguity has a more established definition, though some people ofte n use ambiguous examples to expla in vague ness.Zha n

37、g Qiao (1998) defi nes ambiguity as “ expressions which have more than one semantically unrelated meangn in other words, an expression is ambiguous if it has several paraphraseswhich are not paraphrasesof each other. ” Traditio nally, ambiguity has bee n ide ntified where a sentence has two or more

38、compet ing but distinet meaning attached to it, while for vagueness, distinct meaning cannot be identified. To quote one example that many lin guists men ti oned to explai n ambiguity:“ Flyi ng pla nes dangerous. ” does not tell whether to fly a plane can be dangerous or the planes which are flying

39、can be dan gerous. And ambiguity is rare in actual texts, because con textual clues gen erally make clear which meaning is appropriate. But vagueness is possible in many cases becauseit expresses one mea ning which is not clear or disti net. 3. Pragmatic Realization of Vagueness in Business Negotiat

40、ion 3.1 Reasons for the Existence of Vagueness in Business Negotiation As the author has mentionedvague Ianguage exists extensively in people s daily life. Crystal and Davy (1975) give four reas ons for vague ness: a. memory loss the speaker forgets the correct word b. the Ianguage has no suitable e

41、xact word, or the speaker does not know it c. the subject of the conversation is not such that it requires precision, and an approximation or characterization will do. d. the choice of a vague item is deliberate to main tai n the atmosphere. In bus in ess n egotiati on, the reas ons of vague Ian gua

42、ge that exists can be expla ined objectively and subjectively. Objectively speak ing, vague ness in the real world is omn iprese nt. Many thi ngs, phe nomena and characters in the world form a continuum, which makes it quite difficult to make clear boun daries among them, such as color spectrum, tem

43、peratures, age and so on. Vague ness arises from the in determ inacy in the world. For example, physicia ns con sider spectrum as a con ti nuum of differe nt wavele ngths, in which there are no clear boun dary betwee n the n eighbor colors. At the same time, huma n brains, a products of n ature, is

44、featured by vague thinking. People cannot compartme ntalize the exact boun dary betwee n red and oran ge, etc. Therefore, people turn to vague Ian guage as a result of vague ness in exter nal world and internal huma n thinking. Subjectively speak ing, vague Ian guage finds full reas ons for its exis

45、te nce in bus in ess negotiation. One case is that the speaker is unable to be more precise. The speaker may use vague Ian guage due to memory loss or lack of releva nt kno wledge, just as the first two reas ons proposed by Crystal and Davy. The other case is that the speaker is unwilling to be more

46、 precise for certa in reas ons, just as the last two reas ons proposed by them. Bus in ess n egotiatio n is a very complicated process, when you reply to some questions is beyond your authority or when it is inconvenient to give a reply on some issues, vague Ian guage should be used to deal with; or

47、 to avoid face-to-face conflict, it is the most effective way for us to use vague Ianguage. The n ecessity of adopti ng vague Ian guage in bus in ess n egotiati on lies in promoti on of bus in ess relati ons and realizati on of commercial purposes. Negotiators also adopt vague Ian guage whe n it is

48、unn ecessary to be exact or whe n specific purpose must be achieved. The merits of vague ness help to elim in ate absolute ness, direct ness and ope nn ess of Ian guage. With possibly less mistakes, n egotiators take the in itiative firmly in their han ds. Negotiators may use vague Ian guage to desc

49、ribe, to suggest, to compla in, to praise, to refuse, to cover, to con cede, to inq uire, etc. It can fun cti on as a weap on, a lubrica nt, and a disguise, etc. The high frequency of vague Ianguage s adoption in ssusiegotiation shows it is favored and preferred by negotiators, who can not afford to

50、 ignore the effect of vague Ian guage. 3.2 Pragmatic realization of vagueness in business negotiation Based on the Reas ons for the existe nee of vague ness in bus in ess n egotiati on, it is con cluded that vague ness in bus in ess n egotiati on can be realized in the follow ing method: 3.2.1 Vague

51、 words In the real world, almost all physical objects have characteristics that vary continuously, not discreetly, so there exist large qua ntities of en tities for which there is no clear-cut boun dary to clip betwee n adjace nt on es. Natural phe nomena reflect on Ian guage. Some words and express

52、ions are vague by nature whose boundaries are impossible to define. Besides the com mon est form of nouns, gradable adjectives and adverbs also bel ong to this kind. Ano ther kind is the abstract words which do not have a physical or practical existenee, such as “ beauty ” etc. In bus in ess n egoti

53、ati on vague ness of this type exte nsively exists whe n price, quality, state, space, time, condition, emotion, etc. are referred. Words belong to this category can be nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions. For example, when Party A tries to introduce his goods to Party B, he

54、 says: “ Ougarments are unique, tasteful and good in quality. The words unique” tasteful” ood” are vague as no clear boundaries can be stated. It is difficult to define to what extent is “ uniquec” “tasteful or good” They are vague expressi ons. In bus in ess Ian guage, similarly, nu merous vague wo

55、rds and expressi ons are employed to modify price, quality, shipme nt and so on. 3.2.2 Hedges Hedges are the core part of vague Ian guage, and therefore it is n ecessaryto have a brief review of hedges. Lakoff is considered as the first person to study hedges from linguistic perspective. Lakoff (197

56、2:195) defined hedges as “ Forme, some of the most interesting questi ons are raised by the study of words whose meaning implicitly invo Ives fuzz in ess-words whose job is to make thi ngs fuzzier or less fuzzy” Brown they rather serve as a com muni cative in bus in ess n egotiati on. For example: t

57、ech nique to en courage the speaker s active invo Iveme nt in conveh ns freque ntly (12) A: In Chi na, the Arbitration Commissi on of the CCPIT will execute the arbitratio n. B: I see. A: The decision of the arbitration shall be accepted as final and binding upon both parties. B: Of course. A: We pr

58、efer to resolve disputes by amicable, nonbonding con ciliati on betwee n the two parties. B: Do you thi nk amicable discussi ons are sometimes rather time consuming? A: Yes, but it s still best to attempt to settle disputes without invoking arbitration. B: I agree. A: When you ve a longerm relations

59、hip with us, it s also usually easier to settle the dispute through adjustme nts to future con tracts. B: Is that so? Interesting! But I don t think we ll have dispute. A: I hope not. In the above dialogue,B s words are very simpland vague whe n he gives an swers to A. He uses responsive vagueexpres

60、sionsalmost all the time, except for some questions showing his in terest. B has not show n his exact attitude to A and just agreed with what A has said at most. 4. Pragmatic Functions of Vagueness in Business Negotiation One of the characteristics of the applicati on of vague Ian guage in bus in es