A Pragmatic Approach to Vagueness in Diplomatic Language

Fuzzy words are abundant in all human languages,and widely used in diplomatic language without exception.As one of the tactics and speech skills,appropriate vagueness can meet the special requirements of social contact and accomplish the communicative task.Vagueness has become an indispensable artistic skill for diplomatic personnel.If we analyze diplomatic vagueness from the pragmatic perspective,we can find the grounds for its existence.This thesis first discusses three different definitions of vagueness,the characteristics of diplomatic language,and the basic pragmatic theories:the Cooperative Principle,the Politeness Principle,which will be used to analyze vagueness.Then,through diplomatic examples,the author explores,in detail,the positive effects of diplomatic vagueness.From the perspective of Cooperative Principle,diplomatic vagueness violates quality maxim and quantity maxim,so as to reach certain communicative effects.From the perspective of Politeness Principle,diplomatic vagueness may obey tact maxim,agreement maxim,approbation maxim and sympathy maxim.