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Chapter One Introduction

Human beings have long been pursuing precise rather than vague expressions forlanguages and consider that precision is the basis of distinctiveness, vitality and artistryof language expressions. The Greek philosopher Aristotle said, “Precision of a languageis the basis of fine tradition.” Actually, these concepts lack enough cognition forlanguage ambiguity. In 1965, the American scientist L.A.Zadeh(1965) first proposed theFuzzy Sets Theory which systematically studied the fuzziness of objects and thoroughlyrighted the prejudice for people on it. He noted that not only objects in the objectiveworld is universally ill-defined, but fuzziness is also pervaded in people's thoughts andlanguages. Since then, people have got better understanding of language vagueness andstudied it in wider fields. Vagueness is one of the basic properties of natural language,and it is an essential feature of human thoughts. It reflects the inherent vagueness of theobjective world, as well as the limitation and uncertainty of the subjective knowledge toobjective things for people as subject in language expressions. With the in-depth studiesof pragmatic theory, scholars began to pay more attentions to intentional vagueexpressions.In modern society, vague language is commonly adopted in specific socialactivities, particularly in news conferences. A news conference is a common activity forvarious social organizations and individuals to disseminate information and isfunctioned as a major source of information for the mass media. Government agenciesoften operate a press conference and regard it as an important information carrier and aform of public relations. After long-term practices and researches, some westerncountries have generally developed a governmental press conference mode suitable fortheir domestic political environment. Diplomatic press conferences are major media forthe government to issue domestic and international news and to lead public opinions.Due to the standpoint and policy requirements in language expressions, pressspokesmen often deliberately apply some vague words to improve the efficiency andaccuracy as well as the flexibility of their languages so that these more tactful and subtlelanguages might achieve the best communication effects. Therefore, press spokesmenoften use abundant pragmatic vagueness in answering sensitive questions, easing theatmosphere and other communication activities.
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1.1 Background of the study
The United States is a country with an earlier spokesman system and a moredeveloped government information disclosure system on a global scale and the pressspokesmen system is the fruit of American politics reform and media popularization. Onthe one hand, political reform requires that the US government publicize informationand take advantage of spokesmen to control the press, resolve government crisis andestablish the government image; On the other hand, the media popularization urges theUS media actively seek the right to know and forces the US government to issue a seriesof regulations to protect the spokesperson system. With the combined effect of theabove two forces, the US government spokesman system is increasingly perfect andhaving a positive impact on political lives of current countries. In the United States, thespokesman system is an important means for the government public relations whichflaunts the respect of citizens' freedom of information.