| Abstract | 第1-5页 |
| 摘要 | 第5-8页 |
| Introduction | 第8-11页 |
| 1. Literature review | 第11-26页 |
| ·Clarification of some related terms | 第11-13页 |
| ·Vagueness versus fuzziness | 第11-12页 |
| ·Vagueness versus generality | 第12页 |
| ·Vagueness versus ambiguity | 第12-13页 |
| ·Historical overview of vagueness researches | 第13-17页 |
| ·Philosophically-oriented | 第13-15页 |
| ·Psychologically-oriented | 第15-16页 |
| ·Semantically-oriented | 第16页 |
| ·Pragmatically-oriented | 第16-17页 |
| ·Account of negotiation | 第17-22页 |
| ·Definition of negotiation | 第17-19页 |
| ·Classification of negotiation | 第19-20页 |
| ·Stages of business negotiation (BN) | 第20-22页 |
| ·Previous studies of business negotiation | 第22-26页 |
| 2. Theoretical framework of the study | 第26-34页 |
| ·Cooperative principle | 第26-28页 |
| ·Politeness theories | 第28-34页 |
| ·Lakoff’s theory of politeness | 第29-30页 |
| ·Leech’s politeness principles | 第30-31页 |
| ·Brown and Levinson’s face theory | 第31-34页 |
| 3. Elaboration of vagueness in business negotiation | 第34-46页 |
| ·Reasons for the existence of vagueness in business negotiation | 第34-35页 |
| ·Pragmatic realization of vagueness in business negotiation | 第35-40页 |
| ·Vague words | 第36页 |
| ·Hedges | 第36-38页 |
| ·Syntactic vagueness | 第38-40页 |
| ·Pragmatic functions of vagueness in business negotiation | 第40-46页 |
| ·Being flexible | 第41页 |
| ·Giving the right amount of information | 第41-42页 |
| ·Being persuasive | 第42-43页 |
| ·Self-protection | 第43-44页 |
| ·Being polite | 第44-46页 |
| 4. Application of cooperative principle to vagueness in business negotiation | 第46-58页 |
| ·Quality maxim and vagueness | 第47-50页 |
| ·Observation of quality maxim by vagueness | 第47-49页 |
| ·Violation of quality maxim by vagueness | 第49-50页 |
| ·Quantity maxim and vagueness | 第50-53页 |
| ·Observation of quantity maxim by vagueness | 第50-52页 |
| ·Violation of quantity maxim by vagueness | 第52-53页 |
| ·Relevance maxim and vagueness | 第53-56页 |
| ·Observation of relevance maxim by vagueness | 第53-55页 |
| ·Violation of relevance maxim by vagueness | 第55-56页 |
| ·Manner maxim and vagueness | 第56-58页 |
| ·Observation of manner maxim by vagueness | 第56页 |
| ·Violation of manner maxim by vagueness | 第56-58页 |
| 5. Application of face theory to vagueness in business negotiation | 第58-67页 |
| ·Vagueness and politeness | 第58-59页 |
| ·Hearer’s face and vagueness in business negotiation | 第59-64页 |
| ·Hearer’s positive face | 第60-63页 |
| ·Hearer’s negative face | 第63-64页 |
| ·Speaker’s face and vagueness in business negotiation | 第64-66页 |
| ·Both speaker and hearer’s face | 第66-67页 |
| Conclusion | 第67-69页 |
| Bibliography | 第69-73页 |
| Acknowledgements | 第73页 |
