AbstractIn general, language in business negotiation is believed to be precise, but actually, pragmatic application of vagueness is a common phenomenon in business negotiation. As early as 1965, Zadeh (1965) issued a “fuzzy set”, and for the first time it brought the “fuzzy” concept into language areas. Business negotiation is a complex process. Nowadays, vague language in business negotiation is commonly used. The thesis tries to study the application of vague language and its functions from the pragmatic point of view in international business negotiation. Through analysis, it manifests that negotiators can employ vague language such as vague words, hedges, and syntactic vagueness to satisfy certain communicative purposes, which reveals the functions of vague language, namely being flexible, giving right amount of information, being persuasive, self-protection and being polite.Appropriate use of vagueness can help negotiators to communicate much more smoothly and achieve their goals successfully. Vague language in business negotiation provided the basis for negotiation theory and linguistic methods to resolve problems in negotiation.Key words: vague language; vagueness; pragmatic functions; business negotiation摘 要人们普遍认为商务谈判中的语言应该是准确简洁的，而不是模糊不清的。可事实恰恰相反，模糊语言确实广泛存在于商务谈判中。早在 1965 年，查德发表了《模糊集》，首次把“模糊”的概念引入了语言领域. 但事实上，从语用学角度讨论商务谈判中的模糊语言还有待于进一步的探究。商务谈判是一个涉及诸多方面内容的复杂过程。现在，模糊语广泛应用在商务谈判中。本文旨在从语用学角度讨论模糊语在国际商务谈判中的应用及其作用。通过分析讨论，发现谈判人员在谈判过程中可以使用模糊语言，例如模糊语，模糊限制语，和句法模糊，达到一定的交际目的，即增强谈判语言的灵活性；传达适当的信息量；增强说服力；自我保护以及礼貌功能。...
