The Significance of Vague Language in Political News in TIME

孫璐璐

【Abstract】Political News always reports the facts happening in the country？蒺s political life， which mainly including the guidelines， this paper aims to analyze the application of Vague Language in political news in TIME magazine in details. In this way， to help the readers understand and appreciate the political news better.

【Key words】English political news；TIME；Writing style；Vague Language

【中圖分類號(hào)】G64 【文獻(xiàn)標(biāo)識(shí)碼】A 【文章編號(hào)】2095-3089（2015）03-0101-02

The primary requirement of the news language is preciseness （Zhang， 2002）， however， the clarity and accuracy of the language expressing is not the journalists？蒺 ideal working target. The requirement of news reporting does not exclude the existence of vague language. On the contrary， it is essential to use vague language to ensure the objectivity of the news.

1.Reasons for Applying Vagueness in Political News in TIME

As analyzed above， reporters of TIME widely used vague language in political news. However， these expression appeared in many other political news in TIME for different purposes and different reasons， which would be listed at this part.

“There is no doubt that veracity cannot be separated from the accuracy of news reporting， but in many cases， for the accuracy of the reporting， the fuzziness is essential…Sometimes too precise will lead to unclear， on the contrary， appropriate fuzzy can make news reporting more accurate.” （Ran， 1996） In political news in TIME， journalists often use vague language to avoid inaccuracy or distorted the facts. For example， if the begin time and the end time of an event are not clear or the result of it is uncertain， journalists can use vague language to improve the reliability and avoid the absoluteness of information.

On the other hand， multifaceted factors limit the news spread， that is news discipline， news policy and so on. In political news reporting especially about diplomatic affairs have to using vague language to express. The case is illustrated as follow：

If you want to feel really good about the state of politics in Washington， looks to Athens. Over the past few days， hooded extremists marched in the streets， and demonstrators waved E.U. flags with swastikas on them. （TIME， July 4， 2011）

In this case， both hooded extremists and demonstrators in political news are sensitive topic， so make the time vague is appropriate to report this event. The term“over the past few days” is vague language used to achieve the purpose.

For political events， which should be report， which should not be report； what can report， what can not report； it is public reported well， or it was better to inform internal； what extent to reports， how to handle appropriately， such specific details are strictly in accordance with the national publicity propaganda discipline. Some important political news must report to the world， but some details should not be too precise. This is not only a policy needs， but also a news information strategy needs， which precise language is often difficult to achieve such an effect. Therefore， used some appropriate vague language is useful.

2.Simplicity and Timeliness of Political News

News reports is a timely， objective and fair reflection of the changes in the objective world. Simplicity of news reporting requires journalists to use vague language to recapitulate the event. The substance of simplicity is to minimize the number of languages， improving the effect of expression of language （Ran， 1996）.

News reporting devotes to report the latest developments in the event in the shortest time as soon as possible to the audiences， this unique role in spreading information determines the characteristics of news language. Vague language can generalize the events effectively， which is easy to use to explain the news background and an overview of news story. The typical case go as follow：

Americans have debated the Constitution since the day it was signed， but seldom have so many disagreed so fiercely about so much.…The past decade， beginning with the disputed election of 2000， has been a long national civics class about what the Constitution means—and how much it still matters. （TIME， July 4， 2011）

The topic of this news is about the argument of Constitution. It used the vague words to fuzzy the discussions happened in the past， and focus on the discussion of the Constitution recently.

Sometimes， because of the timeliness of news reporting， it is impossible for journalists to record the event details and the whole process of the event for the timely issuance of news reporting， and at that time， vague language can help journalists quickly report and issue the news.

3.The Readers？蒺 Needs of Political News

In General， the main content of the news is enough to help readers to understand the reported events. For ordinary readers， knowing the important events that occur at home and abroad is the main purpose of reading the news.it looks very precise that a news with complete details， nevertheless it is really lengthy to the readers， which is not correspond with the readers psychological expectation and reading habits. Unless the reader is of special interest to the content of the news or news content and its interests are closely related， otherwise， he is not required to know details of individual newspaper.

Channell think that，“Overall， I see no need for excessive use of numbers in a text， if the text has a lot of numbers， people will be only focused on digital and miss the main points of the paper.” （Channell， 2000）

In her view， the approximate instead of exact figures can lead people to focus on those which have been considered the most important among the words. If those precise numbers are closely related to the content or of interest to readers， they would of course give special attention to the information. More important is that there is no need detailing every detail or background of the event in news reports because of the complexity of time. Seeing the following case：

The 1998 attacks in Dar es Salaam， Tanzania， and Nairobi killed 224 people and wounded thousands more. （TIME， February 7， 2011）

The readers can get the key point that the attacks killed 224 people， which is enough to them to know the news. Therefore， the vague expression “wounded thousands more” is well meet their needs to read news paper.

Therefore， in most cases， journalists can use vague language to meet the readers？蒺 reading habits that to get the information they are interested in.

4.Conclusion

To sum up， this paper mainly focus on the knowledge of vague language， which play emphasis on the application of it in political news in TIME. Through the analysis it makes， we can easily understand why the vague language is widely existed in political news in TIME. In many cases， the vague language has the ability to help the news language perform well， and it can convey information smoothly and complete the news reporting accurately just as the precise language do. Therefore， applying vague language in a appropriate way in political news， not only can make the news language more natural and decent， but also make the news express emotion effectively. In this way， the news reporting can achieve its effect. As a old saying goes， all that is real is rational. Hence， it is reasonable to apply vague language in political news.

Take all these analysis into consideration， we can draw a conclusion that it is necessary to know more about the vague language， which is widely applied in political news reporting. Its importance directly related to our understanding of current events happened in the world. Therefore， we must pay more attention to the application of vague language to get the accurate information from the political news in TIME.

References：

[1]Channell，J.2000.Vague language[M].Shanghai：Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

[2]冉勇平，1996，英語(yǔ)新聞報(bào)道中語(yǔ)言模糊性初探[J].《福建外語(yǔ)》第1期.

[3]張建，2002，報(bào)刊英語(yǔ)中模糊詞的“合理模糊”[J].《山東外語(yǔ)教學(xué)》第1 期.