Abstract: vagueness is also an attribute of natural language, and a common linguistic phenomenon. So far, the research on the vague language has been extended into many areas. News reporting as a media plays an increasingly important role in the information age, whose primary requirement is accuracy. However, in reality vague language does exist in news report widely. Could it be said that this phenomenon is a paradox? On the basis of many researchers’ achievements, this paper first introduces the definition of vague language and studies the reasons of its appearance. And then it sums up the characteristics of news reporting and analyzes the function of vague language in English news based on collection of authoritative English news . It is hoped that readers could better understand that vagueness is a language-use strategy in communication and an effective way of expressing in news reporting.

Key words: vague language; English news report; adaption theory

CONTENTS

Abstract

中文摘要

1. Introduction1

2.Literature Review..2

2.1 Definition of Vague Language

2.2Reasons for the Existence of Vague Language

3.Theoretical Basis of Vague Language.4

3.1 The Relative Certainty of Vague Language

3.2 The Influence of Context

4. Characteristics of English News Reporting..5

5.The Pragmatic Functions of Vague Language in English News.7

5.1 Increasing credibility 

5.2 Enhancing Self-protecting

5.3 Avoiding Absoluteness

5.4 Meeting Readers’ Reading Habits

6. Conclusion.9

Bibliography.10

Acknowledgement11