论文总字数：33158字

摘 要

模糊，作为语言的基本特性之一，在汉语和英文中都是一个常见的现象。以区分中英模糊词的异同为目的，本论文首先介绍了模糊词的六个特点：含蓄性，简约性，包容性，概括性，动态性，灵活性，然后对中英文模糊词进行对比研究，并且辅以大量例子说明，中英文中颜色，时间，数量和指示代词的模糊词存在相同之处；中文相对比英文更模糊；中英文中模糊词的不同之处主要体现在颜色和数字两个方面。本文旨在探究出模糊词在中英文中最合理的使用方式。经过研究与分析，最终发现适当的使用模糊词能够更充分的表达自己的观点并且还能避免不必要的尴尬。

关键词：模糊词；对比；异同点；文化差异

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Characteristics of Fuzziness 3

3.1 Implicit 3

3.2 Concise 4

3.3 Comprehensive 4

3.4 Summary 5

3.5 Dynamic 5

3.6 Flexible 6

4. Similarities of Fuzziness in Chinese and English 6

4.1 Color Category 6

4.2 Time Category 7

4.3 Quantity Category 7

4.4 Demonstrative Pronoun Category 8

5. Differences of Fuzziness in Chinese and English 8

5.1 Chinese Tends to Be More Fuzzy than English 9

5.2 Different Use of Colors 10

5.3 Different Use of Numbers 12

6. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

Along with the development of human language, a great many of words or phases never have strict boundary of the exact notions these words or phrases are referring to, this is called fuzziness. Inevitably, people always use a large number of fuzzy notions or fuzzy words which express fuzzy notions. It’s fair enough to say that, to a certain extent, there is no human language without fuzziness. After further study, people even realize that the inaccurate, fuzzy using of some words accounts for a larger proportion rather than the correct using of those words. It even can not imagine how communication will go on without fuzziness.

Many scholars try to define fuzziness despite an exactly accurate definition which impossibly be found. Usually, seen from linguistics and aesthetics, “fuzziness” is the word mostly accepted while “vagueness” is the word from logistics. However, the word in Chinese broadly covers four categories: fuzziness; vagueness; generality; ambiguity. Unfortunately, the boundary and the cognition of fuzziness are still fuzzy despite scholars both at home and abroad have devoted themselves into distinguishing theses four notions. Miao Dongsheng, a linguist at home, defined fuzziness as: “To some things, we can not find the precise classification criterion. It’s pretty difficult to make clear assertion whether it belongs to a class. The unclear category of these things is known as fuzziness. In short, fuzziness is the unintelligibility of one thing’s category, the gradient of object qualification.”(Miao Dongsheng, 1987: 42)

In the light of cognition, language is fuzzy as well as category. Wu Yongtao explained the reason causes fuzziness: “The root of fuzziness not only lies in the object (the object a language pointed to), not only lies in the subject (the user of a language), not only lie in the language itself. It’s the result of collision between subject and object in the language. It is determined by three elements at the same time. We can not discuss fuzziness simply from one point.”(Wu Yongtao, 1991:23)

Fuzziness has a unique pragmatic function which ensures the communication goes smoothly and thoroughly. Tactfully using of fuzziness guarantees the expression to be more indirect, implicit, flexible. Meanwhile, it makes the expression more appropriate and full of elasticity. Enhancing the language expression is another key function the fussiness works for.

Additionally, making a clear distinction between fuzziness and confusion is another point where stress ought to be laid on. Confusion originally means misleading and misunderstanding. On the contrary, fuzziness is a kind of fuzzy reflection in one’s mind while a speaker is pointing to a specific object. Although the reflection is fuzzy, the object is fully expressed without fail. Thus, it needs us to make full use of the fuzziness to express ourselves thoroughly.

As one of the natural properties of a language, fuzziness can’t be avoided in both Chinese and English. Meanwhile, the fuzziness itself possesses numerous features. However, only a couple of prime characteristics are dealt with in this paper allowing for the vast characteristics of fuzziness. By drawing a conclusion from previous documents and papers, fuzzy expression is implicit, concise, comprehensive, summary, dynamic and flexible. More details are available in the following paragraphs.

Apart from first two sections of my thesis, introduction and literature review, the third section deserves more attention. The third section, followed by the similarities and differences in the fourth and fifth sections, focuses on the thorough explanations of essential characteristics of the fuzziness.

2. Literature Review

It’s temping to say the research of fuzzy expression is based on the Fuzzy Theory, which is initially proposed by American electrical engineering and computer scientist L.A.Zadeh. By fuzzy phenomenon it means “More often than not, the classes of objects encountered in the real physical world do not have precisely defined criteria of membership.”(Zadeh, 1965:338) By a fuzzy set it means “A class of objects with a continuum of grades of membership. Such a set is characterized by a membership (characteristic) function which assigns to each object a grade of membership ranging between zero and one. The notions of inclusion, union, intersection, complement, relation, convexity, etc, are extended to such sets, and various prosperities of these notions in the context of fuzzy sets are established.” (Zadeh, 1965:345) This notion unveils that human cognitive ability is characterized by fuzziness and it plays a key role in human abstract thinking and information transfer. An awareness of fuzziness rose which convinced audience that no necessities need to be stressed on accurate presentation. Deliberately pursuing accurate expressions probably breaks the dynamic balance of both sides of the communication.

More and more researches and analysis sprung up after L.A.Zadeh’s first leap into fuzzy domain. Bertrand Russell pointed out “All languages, more or less, are vague.” (Russell, 1923: 23) He defines vagueness by saying that “A representation is vague when the relation of the representing system to the represented system is not one-one, but one-many.”(Russell, 1923: 23)

Joanna Channell’s Vague Language is one of the most universally accepted books specialized in fuzzy expression. In her book, she defined that an expression or word is vague if:“ a. it can be contrasted with another expression or word which appears to render the same proposition; b. it is purposely and unabashedly vague; c. its meaning arises from the intrinsic uncertainty referred to by Peirce.”(Channell 1994: 53)

Wu Tieping(1979: 30) marks himself in the research of fuzzy expression at home by his book named as Fuzzy Linguistics.

Thanks to these forerunners both at home and abroad, fuzziness has been accepted and used technically and explicitly.

3. Characteristics of Fuzziness

Generally, fuzziness is implicit, concise, comprehensive, summary, dynamic and flexible.

3.1 Implicit

During the communication, it seems inconvenient to specify something or some problems in order to avoid embarrassment both for the speaker and the listener. At that time, fuzzy expression is usually used to consciously make the intended meaning concealing and it would be better if much food is provided for thought. Furthermore, achieving a level of “ Everything is included in the silence.” Take a daily expression as an example, some of your mates will ask you“How much did you get from selling your old house?” Actually, most of us are not willing to tell the exact number because of the privacy. So, the answer always goes in that way “Around two hundred grands.” The answer delivers a message of reluctancy to tell the exact number to the listener. Even the indication of “It’s none of your business.” or “Simply focus on your business.” remains in the deeper understanding.

Diplomacy and politics are another occasion where fuzzy expression can bring its talents into full play. Especially when some sensitive topics are involved, fuzzy expression helps to thaw the atmosphere and hit the eyes of the topic at the same time. Zhou Enlai, our respectable foreign minister, proposed a toast at the welcoming feast in 1972. “Due to the reason we all know, peoples in both countries have been suspended from contact for over 20 years. Now, with the joint efforts of both U.S. and China, the door to peoples’ friendship was eventually opened. So far, the peoples of both sides have already longed for the normalization of U.S-China relations and the striving situation out of tense. Peoples, and only peoples, can be the engine to create world’s history. We believe that the wills of both peoples are destined to be reality one day.” Zhou didn’t spell out the “The reason we all know.” However, an obvious affection was created by his tactful expression. Our minister not only claimed the position China stood, but also avoided the embarrassment. More important, a forceful statement of indisputable patriotism was contained in these few fuzzy words.

3.2 Concise

The economic principle of language requires for the effective communication and expression with the minimum amount of language. So, the fuzziness occurs because of the minimum amount of language. However, fuzziness provides spacious space of aesthetic and recreation. Any kind of experience, imagination, perfection can be added by mankind. Actually, the uncertainty in language is not negative. It can deliver enough information at the expense of the least cost and make effective judgment. For an instance, when talking about light, seven colors are the common words used to describe it. Could you imagine how the conversation will go on if only wavelength, frequency and other professional terms are allowed? Equally, when talking about age, people always use young, middle-age and old instead of the exact date, month and year. Song Yu described the neighbor’s daughter like “It’s too tall if she is one inch taller and too short if one inch shorter. It’s too glamorous if she makes up.”(Song Yu, 1979: 1757-1816) Judging standards vary from reader to reader. So the poet left space for readers to shape the picture of a beauty based on their own standard.

3.3 Comprehensive

The coverage of semantic meaning, sentence meaning, even the word meaning increased because of fuzziness. In some particular context, appropriate using of fuzziness is always a high priority than accurate expression. Allowing for the difference of Chinese and English version, I translate one sentence word by word literally. Daiyu consoled Jia Baoyu after Baoyu was beaten up by his father: you may need to get rid of all the pernicious habits. The single word “may” indicates two different understandings: firstly, try to persuade Baoyu not to commit the same mistake again. Secondly, express her doubts whether such kind of a playboy will correct his errors and make a fresh start. It is not easy to express many indications even by several lines of presentation, but it could be achieved easily with the help of fuzziness.

3.4 Summary

Fuzzy expression is more general with the feature that the intension is not fixed and the extension is not limited. The richer information is contained because of fuzziness. This is widely reflected in legal documents. “If a people’s court which has jurisdiction over a case is unable to exercise the jurisdiction for a special reason, the superior people’s court shall designate another court to exercise the jurisdiction.”(Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China 2007) This law does not spell out “a special reason.” However, it indicates relatively strong limit and generality due to the using of fuzziness. When this law comes into the practice, the lawyer or the judge could judge from the context whether the reason exceeds the coverage of “a special reason”.

3.5 Dynamic

Fuzzy expression, as a resilient expression, not only can act as the intermediary and transition of universal relation between objects, but also reflect the continuous transformation process and the movement of objects. It’s more conducive to express the complex life in practice. Fuzzy expression can serve as intermediary and transition of universal relation between objects, such as “He was very happy, almost over the moon.” It’s a process from “happy” to “over the moon”, which a psychological process reflects to the specific behavior. However, clear intermediary doesn’t exist in this changing process. In this case, two fuzzy words, “happy” and “over the moon”, serve as intermediary and transition for themselves. Thanks to work of fuzziness, the language receiver is able to feel this psychological changing process.

3.6 Flexible

Due to the fact that the intension is not fixed and the extension is not limited, fuzziness enriches the elasticity and enhances the flexibility of the language which allows us to explain from different views. Especially when the speaker is not quite familiar with the topic or knows a few words related to the topic, fuzzy expression is a reliable solution to the embarrassment. In communicative activities, due to the influence of topic, context and subjective or objective environmental factors, sometimes the speaker knows the accurate information, however, in order to leave space for himself, or to avoid being proved the speech is wrong, deliberately using of the fuzzy language is adopted for leaving space for both sides of communication to reach the goal of self-protection. Although the spokesman of a coal mine mishap was confirmed that the 38 miners were missing, he still talked to the press “Approximately, 38 miners were missing.” In this sentence, the number “ 38 ” is an accurate number and the spokesman is pretty clear there will be more victims as long as the rescue is moving ahead. Caution is the first principle which a spokesman should follow before the press and the whole society.

4. Similarities of Fuzziness in Chinese and English

With the specific introduction of definition and characteristics of fuzziness, readers already have a deep understanding of fuzziness. For further study, the next step is going to discuss the similarities of fuzziness between Chinese and English in the light of semantic category.

4.1 Color Category

The fuzzy expression of colors lies in two aspects: firstly, no clear boundaries between adjacent colors. Nowadays, spectrometer is fully used to analyze the light. Modern optics have strictly defined and distinguished the light by the difference of wavelength. Nevertheless, fuzziness is always there. What’s more, people distinguish different lights by their visual organs only. Secondly, no clear boundaries between gradations of the same color.

In English, the definition of “red”: something that is red is the color of blood or of a ripe tomato.

In Chinese, the definition of “红”：像鲜红或是石榴花的颜色.

Strictly speaking, both of the two definitions are not the real meaning of “red”, they are simply the reference criteria of “red”. In Chinese, “绛, 朱, 赤, 红” all belong to the “red” category, a precise line of demarcation never exists when the red is fading from deep to shadow. For such vocabulary or word, since there is no clear measure criterion, fuzziness has become inevitable.

In English, eleven basic words are used to describe the colors: black, white, red, yellow, grey, blue, brown, orange, pink and purple. Simply, the extension of these words is unconfirmed as well as in Chinese.

4.2 Time Category

Time is defined as a continuum. There is no clear boundary between two adjacent time periods. However, language is trying to slice them for practical use and fuzziness inevitably comes along with the slicing. For instance, “dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, dusk night, etc” are endowed with different time periods in different areas, different seasons and different climates. Another example, people always say that they should take care of the old. However, have you ever thought about the border line between the old and the rest? In my hometown, free bus service is available only for the old over seventy. So, the definition of “old” is fuzzy.

The same questions occur in English, there is no clear boundary between adjacent time periods such as four seasons “spring, summer, autumn and winter.” What"s more, time related words like “past, now, future, recent, just now, at once, immediately, etc” and age related words “baby, children, juvenile, youth, middle age, old age, etc ”are also fuzzy just like Chinese words.

4.3 Quantity Category

On the one hand, numeral can deliver the exact number and the quantity; on the other hand, it works semantically with the feature of fuzziness. Numbers, serve as a special kind of language culture, not only can be seen as a reflection of philosophy, aesthetics and religions, but also can contain a particular emotion explicitly.

e.g. I have a thousand and one things to do before we set out for our holiday.

People deliver the meaning of “many” by using of “a thousand and one”.

In Chinese, “几，多，少，一些，若干，左右，个别，极少数，许多，大多数. etc” are all used to express fuzziness.

In English, “some, any, many, much, few, little, somewhat, about, a large number of, a bit of, a great many, etc” are all used to do the same work.

4.4 Demonstrative Pronoun Category

The fuzziness of demonstrative pronoun lie in four features: firstly, personal pronoun is semantically fuzzy. There is definitely more than one object when people use pronouns like “we, you, they”, but they can’t figure the exact number out. Secondly, the personal pronoun which has same signal and plural form is semantically fuzzy. In the scientific speeches and papers, “we” is always seen as a priority over “I” in order to resonate within audiences or readers. Thirdly, demonstrative pronoun always makes a difference between “this” and “that”. However, when should people use “this” and “that”? Nobody could give a satisfying answer. An agreement has become a practice, “that” is used when people are referring to relatively far, otherwise “this” is used. Fourthly, interrogative pronoun is semantically fuzzy itself, such as “who, where and when”.

e.g. I hope that the discussion will not be too long for it will only waste time.

This sentence is semantically fuzzy. What does “it” refer to? Simply from the view of structure, “it” refers to the “the discussion”. But from the view of semantic, it’s better to say it means “the discussion being too long”.

5. Differences of Fuzziness in Chinese and English

Both Chinese and English have the ability to express fuzzy concepts and have the similar words to those fuzzy concepts in the same category. However, the expressions of specific words vary from language to language both semantically and intentionally. It’s been accepted that a language stays in close contact with its society and culture environment.

5.1 Chinese Tends to Be More Fuzzy than English

Generally, our country, China, has a priority on the overall, implicit and comprehensive way of thinking. Chinese culture is headed for a blur, hazy and overall direction while western culture is headed for an accurate and specific direction. The contrast is pretty obvious in the form of sedimentation and coagulation in the developing process of their own languages. This may explain the reason why the Chinese is fuzzy, vague and hazy and the English is precise, rigorous and clear.

As a matter of fact, the fuzziness is closely tied to the expressive ability of a language. The real world is a mixture of consciousness, cognition and contradiction. What’s more essential is that the real world is inexhaustible while the units of language are pretty limited. It’s incapable to describe the inexhaustible world with limited language units. In addition to the fuzzy objects, the description of one clear object can only be approximate or near, in other words, can only be comparatively precise. Fortunately, people can describe fuzzy objects indirectly by other means. Besides, serving as the intermediary between the subjective and objective world, the emergence, existence as well as the development of language are restricted both subjectively and objectively. As a result of the continuous and endless development of our subjective and objective world, the development of language is unable to keep up with the pace of that development. Thus, people have to convey the maximum capacity of information with the minimum units of language. Namely, people have no choice but to express our different feelings by a same word which naturally leads to fuzziness. In particular, after hundred decades of cultural evolution, difference inevitably exists between Chinese and English. This is another explanation of fuzziness between Chinese and English.

Thousands of years ago, Chinese people began to describe a fair lady as “沉鱼落雁，闭月羞花” in literature. There is no doubt that the beauty of a lady is a fuzzy concept, the judging standard varies from person to person and from age to age. Although, nowadays, people have specific standards to judge a beauty from BWH, etc, the majority still make a judgment by intuition.

Differently, people have a more vivid description of ugliness in English. “A large head, reddish-brown hair ruffled; between two shoulders hunched a huge hump, corresponding to the front of their chicken carina; thigh and calf, not a one posture, between his legs only knee to barely close together, from the front, like two crescent-shaped scythe, with only a knife bonding; large feet, enormous hands; furthermore, such a deformed body, but it has a kind of hard to describe like terrible posture: energetic, vigorous and agile, extraordinary courage.”(Hugo, 1831: 71). There is another example which indicates that English is more precise than Chinese. In English, we called a lady “blonde” whose skin is white, hair is golden and eyes are blue. I think this is a perfect example of “convey the maximum capacity of information with the minimum units of language.” According to these examples above, it is not difficult for us to see that Chinese tends to be more fuzzy than English.

5.2 Different Use of Colors

As we mentioned above, apart from the similarities between Chinese and English, a great number of differences still need our attention. Allowing for that people don’t have precise definitions on colors, people have reasons to say that all the color words are fuzzy expression. Due to the lack of precise division between colors, completely different words will be adopted to describe a same color under different language contexts. Differences between English and Chinese fuzzy color words are mainly reflected in three aspects: Firstly, some color terms in a language corresponding to a variety of colors in another language. Secondly, different color terms are adopted to describe the same phenomena or objects in different languages. Thirdly, color terms in one language has nothing to do with the color in another language. I will elaborate these three aspects with several examples in the following paragraphs.

Firstly, some color terms in a language corresponding to a variety of colors in another language. In Chinese, people use several words like “红, 赤, 朱” to describe the color “red”; use several words like “黑, 墨, 乌” to describe the color “black”; use several words like “绿, 翠, 沁” to describe the color “green”; use several words like “蓝，靛，湛” to describe the color “ blue”.

Secondly, different color terms are adopted to describe same phenomena or objects in different languages. Allowing for the difference of cultural backgrounds, customs and habits, geographical environment, religious belief and national psychology, people of different language groups use different words to describe a same term. In Chinese, people always use “青” to describe the color dark blue while using “green, blue, black” to describe the same color. e.g. 青山(green hill) 青天(a blue sky) 青布(black cloth) 青丝(black hair)

Equally, “红” is another example.

e.g. 红茶(black tea) 红糖(brown sugar) 红榜(honor roll)

Thirdly, color terms in one language have nothing to do with the color in another language. When people make a comparison between Chinese and English, it is not difficult to find this phenomenon. In English, people use “white elephant” to indicate one big but useless thing. People use “black sheep” to describe bad men in a group. People use “blue blood” to describe one person born with noble status. People use “green hand” to describe an inexperienced freshman. People use “white lie” to describe a lie which is for good purpose. There are plenty of Chinese color phrases that can not be translated literally.

e.g. 红白喜事(weddings and funerals)

大红大紫(be at the height of popularity)

白马王子(prince charming)

怒气冲冲(be black/red anger)

负债累累(be in the red)

What’s more, either English or Chinese, color words have extensional meaning besides the function expression of color. Symbolic meaning is used more often than its color meaning. Sometimes, it even loses its original meaning. In China, red is the symbol of fortune while red always has the contact with blood in English.

Besides, the color of every subject is different from each other in light or dark which “dark, pale, rich, dull” can be used as adjectives when colors are translated into English. However, these English words have lost its original “black color, white color, money, boring” meaning. Let’s see some examples.

e.g. Anne stood out in dark green velvet dress.(安娜穿着一条深绿色天鹅绒的裙子)

The green mountains in the distance turned dark blue.(远处的青山变成了墨绿色)

5.3 Different Use of Numbers

As we all know, numbers have been invented and developed since ancient age. Numbers are widely used in mathematics and many other fields which serve as convenient tools for us to calculate. In mathematics, numbers are required to be precise and accurate because a very small mistake in mathematics may lead to inconceivable results. Numbers always occur in literature work as well as in mathematics. On the contrary, numbers occur in literature are always fuzzy and no exact or actual quantities of objects are reflected by those numbers. Actually, the symbolic meaning of those numbers should be taken into first consideration.

In Chinese, the number “three, six, nine, ten, etc” have gained some special importance after thousands of years of cultural precipitation and accumulation. The number “three” is universally used as a function word and always refers to uncertain quantity while “three” is simply an exact number in English. We can see it from the example of “挑三拣四” and “说三道四”. The number of “six” is always related to good luck or fortune which can be seen from the example of “六六大顺”. What’s more, the number “nine” in Chinese is much more interesting and mysterious than foreigners can imagine. The ancient China has witnessed the spring up of more than one hundred religion sects and one of these religious sects emphasize the difference of Ying and Yang. The principle of this religion has granted “nine” the deeper religion meaning of “noble, sacred and supreme sovereign.” But what makes the number “nine” in Chinese so fuzzy? The answer lies in the ancient feudal belief which thinks that there are nine levels of heavens. Besides, people believe that the ninth heaven is the highest. This special belief could be seen in many examples, “九霄云外”(beyond the highest heaven), “九天揽月”(to clasp the moon in the highest heaven), “九死一生”(narrow escape from death), “一言九鼎”(word of great importance). In Chinese, the number “ten” always carries the meaning of completeness such as “十全十美” and “十分喜欢”. As we mentioned above, the number “ten” indicates the meaning of completeness, then, what about the number “twelve”? Right, “twelve” carries the meaning of “extremely or exceedingly” which can be seen from the example of “十二分满意”.

Due to the different cultural background of two languages, “seven, twenty, forty, a hundred and one, a thousand and one, etc” are used to express the meaning of “many” in English while these words are simply exact numbers in Chinese. In English, the number is considered to be a lucky number which could give a perfect answer to the confusion that why the world known jet manufacturer named their jets as “737, 747, 757, 777” and etc. Funnily enough, the British called their favorite fiction character James Bond “007”. In the Holy Bible, a phrase is written as “seventy times seven”, it is not a math question as we understand it literally. Much to our surprise, it expresses the meaning of “a large amount”. Too many similar examples can be quoted here: “cross as two sticks” have an expression of very upset; “seventy-two times” indicate that doing one thing again and again; “think twice before you leap” asks us to think thoughtfully before we take actions and it can be translated into Chinese as “三思而后行”; “nineteen to the dozen” means doing one thing endlessly.

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