| Acknowledgements | 第1-7页 |
| Abstract | 第7-9页 |
| 内容摘要 | 第9-11页 |
| Chapter One Introduction | 第11-15页 |
| ·Background of the study | 第11-13页 |
| ·Significance of the study | 第13页 |
| ·Layout of the thesis | 第13-15页 |
| Chapter Two Literature Review | 第15-28页 |
| ·Defining hedging | 第15-17页 |
| ·The study of hedging abroad | 第17-24页 |
| ·Zadeh's fuzzy set theory and hedging | 第17-18页 |
| ·Lakoff's study on hedging | 第18-21页 |
| ·Other froeign scholars' studies on hedging | 第21-24页 |
| ·The study of hedging at home | 第24-28页 |
| ·Wu Tieping's study of hedging | 第24-26页 |
| ·Calculation of fuzziness | 第24-25页 |
| ·Classification of hedges | 第25-26页 |
| ·Other Chinese scholars' studies on hedging | 第26-28页 |
| Chapter Three The Pragmatic Study of Hedging | 第28-45页 |
| ·Grice's study of hedging | 第28-37页 |
| ·Hedging and conversational implicature | 第28-32页 |
| ·Grice's conversational implicature | 第28-29页 |
| ·The cancellability of hedging in conversational implicature | 第29-31页 |
| ·The indeterminacy of hedging in conversational implicature | 第31-32页 |
| ·Hedging and Coorperative Principle | 第32-37页 |
| ·Cooperative Principle | 第32-33页 |
| ·Study of hedges within the framework of the Cooperative Principle | 第33-37页 |
| ·Hedging and Politeness Principle | 第37-45页 |
| ·Leech's Politeness Principle | 第38-39页 |
| ·Brown & Levinson's Politeness Principle | 第39-40页 |
| ·Hedges as a Politeness Strategy | 第40-45页 |
| ·Hedges as a negative Politeness Strategy | 第41-43页 |
| ·Hedges as a positive Politeness Strategy | 第43-45页 |
| Chapter Four Corpus Analysis of Hedging in Business Negotiation English | 第45-57页 |
| ·Lexical hedges | 第45-50页 |
| ·Modal auxiliaries | 第45-48页 |
| ·Verbs | 第48页 |
| ·Adverbs | 第48-49页 |
| ·Adjectives | 第49页 |
| ·Nouns | 第49-50页 |
| ·Non-lexical hedges | 第50-51页 |
| ·Phrasal hedges | 第50页 |
| ·Clausal hedges | 第50-51页 |
| ·Numerical hedges | 第51页 |
| ·Pragmatic motivations of hedging in business negotiation English | 第51-54页 |
| ·Deception of hedging in business negotiation English | 第51-53页 |
| ·Self-protection of hedging in business negotiation English | 第53-54页 |
| ·Pragmatic functions of hedging in business negotiation English | 第54-57页 |
| ·Improving efficiency of expression | 第54页 |
| ·Being reliable and objective | 第54-55页 |
| ·Enhancing flexibility | 第55-56页 |
| ·Being polite | 第56-57页 |
| Chapter Five Conclusion | 第57-60页 |
| ·Major findings of the study | 第57-58页 |
| ·Limitations of the study | 第58页 |
| ·Suggestions for further research | 第58-60页 |
| Bibliography | 第60-63页 |
