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School of English Education, Beijing International Studies University, Beijing, China

[Abstract] As one of the intrinsic features of natural language, fuzziness is widely pervasive in communication.

In this paper, we aim at exploring fuzzy numerals in English news from the perspective of Adaption Theory. By employing case study, we analyze fuzzy numerals as a means of adaptation to the physical, mental and social world, respectively. Through the detailed analysis of first-hand examples selected randomly from several English news websites, mainly in 2016, the paper concludes that fuzzy numerals are results of adapting to the physical world, the mental world and the social world as well.

[Keywords] Fuzzy numerals; Adaption Theory; English news

Introduction

Fuzziness, as an intrinsic attribute of natural language, is widely pervasive in communication (Xu, 2014). In 1965, the American mathematician Zadeh published his paper “Fuzzy Sets” in Information and Control (Cheng, 1988). He introduced the definition of fuzzy sets to mathematics field for the first time, which, to some degree, established fuzziness as a scientific terminology.From then on, fuzzy theory was in fast development in modern natural science and technology (Cheng, 1988). In China, it was not until 1979 that the research of fuzziness in language began, when Professor Wu Tieping put forward the idea of “fuzziness” for the first time in his paper – “An Analysis of Fuzzy Language” (Zhang, 2008).

News, as one of the major mass media, boasts its own characteristics. The first one is accuracy (Cheng, 1988). However, it doesn’t mean that fuzziness and the first and most essential element of news – accuracy – are mutually exclusive. In reality, there is abundant fuzzy language in English news, especially fuzzy numerals. As a newly put forward theory in pragmatics, Adaptation Theory has a strong explaination power on the motivation and function of fuzzy numerals in English news reports. However, studies of fuzzy numerals from the perspective of Adaptation Theory are sporadic, let alone the studies of fuzzy numerals in English news reports from the perspective of this theory. So, this paper aims at exploring fuzzy numerals in English news from the perspective of Adaption Theory.

Fuzzy Numerals

Based on previous scholars’ research, Channell (2000) did research on ways of being vague about quantities in English, and she classified fuzzy numerals into four types:

• precise numbers and approximators • ‘round’ numbers

• ‘faded’ numbers • plural numbers

In the first type, the precise number is usually employed as an approximation in such fixed structures as: “approximator + n” (n here refers to the precise number); “n or m”; and “n or so” (pp. 42- 62). “The approximator is some lexical material (such as about or approximately) which leads to the approximation

reading” (p. 43). Examples of the first type are: about/around/round $500; two or three hundred; ten pounds or so; six or so books. The ‘round’ numbers in the second type mean reference point numbers. “Rosch (1975) showed experimentally that round numbers are used as cognitive reference points” (p. 81). Based on Rosch’s experiments, “the expression ‘round number’ designates, as far as ordinary English is concerned, just those numbers which, in Rosch’s terms, are reference points in the base 10 number system” (p. 83). Channell used Wachtel’s (1981) examples to explain the round number: (a.) “Sam has $9,873 in his savings account” (p. 88). (b.) “Sam has $10,000 in his savings account” (p. 88). In this example, Sentence (a) is regarded as being accurate, since there is no round number in it. On the contrary, Sentence (b) is considered as being fuzzy.

As Channell (2000) said, Menninger (1969) called ‘faded numbers’ the numbers which have the process of semantic fading; in other words, “the exact number meaning ‘fades’, leaving the signification ‘a few’ or, more often ‘many’” (p. 86). For example, the expression the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question means very important. I’ve got a thousand (and one) things to do. Here, a thousand (and one) means lots. The last type, plural number, is another kind of approximate quantity without using an overt approximator. Numerals which can be used in this way in English are as follows: hundreds, thousands, millions, or billions. In addition, some of them are combined to give other quantities, for examples: tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, thousands of millions, and tens of billions.

Adaption Theory

Adaptation Theory was first proposed by Jef Verschueren in his paper “Pragmatics is A Theory of Linguistic Adaptation” in 1987. But it was not until 1999 when his book Understanding Pragmatics was published that this theory got complete and mature. Inspired greatly by Darwin’s evolutionary epistemology, Verschueren (1999) argues that “Adaptability is the property of language which enables human beings to make negotiable linguistic choices from a variable range of possibilities in such a way as to approach points of satisfaction for communicative needs” (p. 61). For the purpose of communication, people manipulate linguistic structures to adapt to non-linguistic contextual correlates, such as the physical world, social world and mental world, where the communication takes place.

According to Verschueren (1999), using language is a process of making choices. He also holds that variability, negotiability and adaptability are three intrinsic properties of language, which can be used to explain how constant choices are made. These three language properties are hierarchically related and fundamentally indivisible. Variability and negotiability serve as precondition or foundation in choice-making, and adaptability is of great importance but meaningless in itself without variability and negotiability (Verschueren, 1999, pp. 58- 63).

Verschueren (1999) proposes four angles to investigate pragmatic description and interpretation. These four angles – contextual correlates of adaptation, structural objects of adaptation, dynamics of adaptation and salience of the adaptation process, are coherent and complementary to take different functions from the perspective of pragmatics. To put it in a simple way, under different levels of consciousness, the use of language is the process of adaptation to all the elements involved in contextual correlates and any possible language structures. The communicative contexts include the physical, social and mental worlds of language users, so the contextual correlates should not be regarded as static.