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A. Definition of Fuzziness in Language
With the increasing usage of the multi-functional computer technology in recent years,language research has been carried out in many other fields, among which fuzzy linguistics,generated by mathematical linguistics, has aroused more and more attention. Fuzzylinguistics is a new discipline that comes along with the fuzzy mathematics. The subjects offuzzy mathematics are fuzzy concept, fuzzy logic, fuzzy language, fuzzy information, fuzzy phenomena and fuzzy set etc. Language research that uses the methodology of fuzzymathematics is called fuzzy linguistics. In 1965, U.S. cybernetician L. A. Zadeh putforward the concept of “Fuzzy sets (Fuzzy Set)” on the basis of the multi-valued logic. Heheld the view that “More often than not, the classes of objects encountered in the realphysical world do not have precisely defined criteria of membership” (L. A. Zadeh, 1965).Fuzzy category boundary is not obviously determined. To the contrary, in natural language,most words of a sentence belong to a Fuzzy Set. Since the proposal of this theory fuzzinessin language research has entered a new stage.Though talking about fuzziness itself, different people may hold different ideas;linguistic scholars share the similar point of view for fuzziness of language, which refers toobjects’ language expression that owns unclear and indeterminate boundary. A symbol userwill find it fuzzy if its borderland cases of applicability loom large in comparison with itsclear cases. In linguistics, the fuzziness of language is considered to be a basic and naturalcharacteristic of human language. It is embodied in the complex language system aslanguage units, objective and inevitable—fuzzy words and the fuzzy structure. Sometimespeople can hardly notice the fuzzy form for it’s internalized and conventionalized, such asin English, the degree adverbs like many, almost, pretty etc. The word bears no obviousextension and they are all fuzzy expressions. Fuzzy expressions exist everywhere, not justin one but all human language. People use a large number of fuzzy forms to communicate,or conduct fuzzy cognitive way so as to achieve particular communication goal.
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B.Classification of Fuzziness in Language
Fuzziness in language, as an essential nature in language, is realized by several forms.In Joanna Channell’s book Vague Language, she pointed out that vague language can bespecified into three types, namely, vague additives, vague words and vagueness byimplicature. Vague additives refer to the word or phrase attached before expression thatbears a well-defined meaning and give rise to a blurred meaning change on the originallyaccurate concept like almost, to an extent, approximately, roughly etc. Vague word is theword which in itself is fuzzy with an unclear extension and boundary. For example, night,morning, big, tall, etc. In addition, approximate words, type descriptors and placeholdersare also in this category. The third form vagueness by implicature is not fuzzy in its literalmeaning. It realizes its function by showing certain self-evident details under the covermeaning. Fuzzy implication is inseparable with the context. In different contexts, precisewords may also indicate fuzzy semantic meaning. This phenomenon can be reflected inmany rhetoric devices like sarcasm, metaphor etc.

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