A Pragmatic Analysis of Hedges in English Economic News: Taking the Financial Times as an Example

Abstract

Since Professor L. A. Zadeh put forward the vagueness theory in 1965, a growing number of scholars have used it as a theoretical basis for preliminary discussions on the fuzzy phenomenon in many fields. However, there are not many studies on the analysis of the fuzzy phenomenon in news, especially the study of hedges in English economic news is yet to be enriched. Economic news plays an important role in people's daily lives. Economic news requires accuracy, objectivity, and conciseness, as well as acceptability and politeness. It seems to imply that hedges cannot exist in English economic news. However, the use of hedges in economic news can precisely achieve these purposes. To prove that there are a large number of hedges in economic news and that hedges play an important role in strengthening the credibility of news, avoiding giving details, achieving politeness, and enhancing self-protection, I take the news from the Financial Times as the source and explores the pragmatic function of hedges in English economic news and its specific application by combining the classification of hedges from the perspective of pragmatics, namely, strengthening the credibility, avoiding giving details, enhancing self-protecting and achieving politeness. By analyzing these results, the author hopes to contribute to the further development of economic news theory in English and also to help readers better grasp the essentials of economic news writing.