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tedfor this study. The target data are collected from books and articles about business letterwriting as well as articles on internet. In order to obtain valuable materials for thepresent study, the data this thesis draws upon are taken from five books which are listedin References part. These books are written by authors with rich experiences in businesscommunication and published by reputable press. It is supposed that these letterscollected from various sources can be taken as the representative of LOC.The study is also a descriptive and interpretive one. The research makes a detaileddescription and analysis of vagueness in order to reclassify its functions into differenttypes. Then with the guidance of pragmatic theories, the functions of vagueness in LOCare scrutinized. With the alertness of avoiding being subjective, this whole process ofanalyzing is highly speculative and inductive.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Overview
Vagueness, an interdisciplinary subject, has been paid more and more attentionduring recent years and is applied in various fields. In this chapter, we will have aliterature review related to the vagueness phenomena. At the very beginning, we willprobe into the etymology of the word "vague". Various approaches to vagueness, suchas philosophical, cognitive, semantic and pragmatic will be introduced respectivelythen.

2.2 Etymology of "Vague"
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) presents a clear path to a word's origin.OED shows us that the first recorded user of the word "vague" in English language isThomas Vicary (1490―1561/2), a Sergeant-Surgeon to Henry VIII, who published abook named Anatomie of Mans Body which is the first book of anatomy in English.There exist two possibilities by which "vague" found its path to English. One isthat it may come from the 13th-century French word with the same form. Or it mayhave been adapted from the Latin word "vag-us". Actually both the two words have themeaning of "wandering, uncertain or inconsistent". As shown in OED， the primarymeaning of "vague" is: couched in indefinite or general terms; not precisely ordefinitely expressed; deficient in particulars or details. The second meaning of "vague"is "not exact or precise in meaning". Locke is believed to be the first person to use theword in this meaning in his article "Epistle to the Reader" in 1690. Locke wrote that inthe Essay: "Vague and insignificant Forms of Speech and Abuse of Language have solong passed for Mysteries of Science."Another meaning of "vague" is "lacking in precision or definiteness: indistinct,indefinite", which is applicable to ideas and knowledge. Besides, the first usage of"vague" in this sense is also attributed to Locke (Berkeley, 1990)."Vague" can also be employed to describe outlines or physical forms, persons andsensations. OED credits B. W. Proctor with this innovation in his Flood of Thessaly(1882), where he says: chaos, touched with light and fomi， lost its vague being(Berkeley, 1990).

3 Theoretical Framework......... 20-30
    3.1 Overview .........20
    3.2 Cooperative Principl......... 20-23
    3.3 Politeness Principle......... 23-25
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