A pragmatic analysis of hedges from the perspective of politeness principle

Abstract

In the process of daily interpersonal communication, hedges have a very wide and universal application. In the actual communication, hedges have their own unique pragmatic value in reducing the value of information in sentences, weakening the information in sentences and transferring the topic. This paper has adopted Politeness Principle proposed by Leech as the theoretical framework and aims to make an analysis of hedges used in the famous English literature Jane Eyre through the method of qualitative research. As a result, it is found there are four main functions as follows: maintaining a better communication environment, saving face and achieving the purpose of self-protection, making the expressions polite and euphemistic and making words more appropriate and acceptable.