According to the author's statistics, from 1994 to 2004, there were 1005 papers with "fuzziness" as the key word [1]. It is no wonder that as early as 2000, when Chen Weizhen and Wu Shixiong summarized the development history of fuzzy linguistics in China, they said, "Among all linguistic branches in China, fuzzy linguistics started late but developed fastest. Shi Anshi (1988) pointed out that as early as 1959, Zhao Yuanren, an outstanding linguist in China, proposed to distinguish ambiguity, vagueness and generality at the beginning of his book Chinese Ambiguity. However, the real upsurge of fuzzy linguistics in China began with Wu Tieping's paper "A Preliminary Study of Fuzzy Language" published in the fourth issue of Foreign Languages, 1979. Therefore, many scholars believe that China's study of fuzzy linguistics was born from the publication of this paper.
Although scholars have begun to explore the source of linguistic fuzziness since the birth of fuzzy linguistics, the study of linguistic fuzziness cannot avoid answering the question of the source of fuzziness. However, since Wu Tieping (1979) pointed out that language fuzziness is related to synaesthesia in language and the economy of language expression, and some scholars have made new explanations on this issue from the perspectives of phenomenology, cognitive linguistics and semiotics, linguists still have no consistent answer. On the contrary, it has caused more scholars to rethink this issue from a broader field. So as to deepen people's scientific understanding of this issue. As William Chan (200 1) said when talking about the innovation of foreign language research, "different methods and different angles will lead to different findings for the same research object in language research", and the innovation of language research is the result of this different discovery. With regard to the research on the causes of language fuzziness abroad, the fourth chapter of Fuzzy Linguistics by Wu Tieping (1999: 95- 132) is basically introduced. This paper intends to summarize the research in this field in China, and reflect on language fuzziness and its roots and previous studies from a systematic perspective.
1. The course of fuzziness in China's linguistics.
1. 1. Definition of language fuzziness.
In the big family of fuzziness, although fuzzy linguistics, fuzzy rhetoric, fuzzy mathematics, fuzzy system theory and fuzzy reasoning pay different attention to fuzziness, their understanding of the nature of fuzziness is similar. Miao Dongsheng (1987: 19-25) is the first introduction to interdisciplinary fuzziness in China.
Although when we talk about the fuzziness of language, we will consider it from all levels of language. For example, Wang Fengxin (200 1) summarized the fuzziness of language English from four aspects: phonetics, notional words, function words and grammar. However, most scholars are concerned about the definition of fuzziness, especially the differences and relations between fuzziness and fuzziness, generality and ambiguity. There are many materials in this field. Readers can refer to Shi Anshi (1988) and Zhang Qiao (1998). Wu Tieping (1999: 143), Liu (2003), etc. Zhang Qiao also systematically distinguished these four terms from three aspects: semantics, syntax and pragmatics, and basically defined their respective jurisdictions. Even vague words have clear connotations, and the vague extension "only pays attention to the marginal components, and the central components are generally not vague."
In addition, scholars such as Cao (1989) and Jiang Youjing (199 1) also put forward the concepts of fuzzy language and fuzzy speech according to the difference between Saussure's language and speech. They believe that fuzzy language can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. The former refers to the fuzziness of language. The latter refers to fuzzy language units such as fuzzy words and fuzzy structures. Vague speech is a variety of words that people can perceive in language application, which have no specific meaning and do not affect successful communication. It is the product of personal communication. Chen He (1996) summed up the relationship between them as follows: "Fuzzy language is the basis of fuzzy language, but fuzzy language does not have to be expressed as fuzzy language, and non-fuzzy language can also constitute fuzzy language [
1.2. Scholars' different answers to the origin of linguistic fuzziness:
Domestic scholars have had a heated discussion on the origin of language fuzziness. Zhang Qiao (1998a, b), Wu Tieping (1999) and other monographs on fuzzy linguistics, which are widely circulated in China, all talked about the views of all parties when summarizing the development of fuzzy linguistics in China. This debate began with Shi Anshi (1988). Subsequently, Fu Dawei (1990) commented on it with the analysis of fuzzy semantics. Shi Anshi (199 1) replied to fuzzy semantic reconsideration —— A reply to Comrade Fu Dawei. The focus of their argument is whether the ambiguity of the object causes the ambiguity of the meaning. Fu Dawei is distinguished. Shi Anshi (1994: 94-96) holds that "under general or generalized conditions, the formation of fuzzy semantics has two decisive factors", namely "the contradiction between the finiteness and discreteness of language symbols and the continuity of many things" and "the need of human thinking and communication". In addition to what Chen Weizhen (2000) mentioned in his conclusion, in recent years, (200 1), Zhao (200 1), Tang (2003) and Zhang Huaru (2004) have also reflected on the problems raised by predecessors. Chen Weizhen (200650), Chen Weizhen and Wu Shixiong (2003) reconsidered the nature of category and semantic fuzziness, Zhang (2004)' s semiotic interpretation of language fuzziness and Zhao Liang (2004)' s view of fuzzy language from Saussure's linguistic theory also explained this problem from a new angle.
In addition to these papers specializing in the causes of fuzziness, many scholars have also summarized the views of different scholars in different periods, such as Chen, (1996), Wu Shixiong, Chen Weizhen (2000,200 1) and Yao Hongkun (2001).
The first view holds that the fuzziness of language symbols comes from the fuzziness of things;
The second view holds that the fuzziness of language stems from the limitations of human cognition;
The third view holds that fuzziness is the basic attribute of language symbols themselves.
Let's take a look at Wu Tieping and Zhang Qiao, who have studied fuzzy linguistics deeply in China. Wu Tieping (1989) systematically put forward the viewpoint of revisiting language fuzziness for the first time, and this article was later accepted as the fifth chapter of his monograph Fuzzy Linguistics. He said, "When discussing fuzziness, we must distinguish between epistemological fuzziness and cognitive fuzziness (or conceptual fuzziness). (1999: 14 1) "The former is objective fuzziness, for example, color words reflect that color itself has no boundaries in the objective world. The latter refers to fuzziness such as kinship terms, which is a reflection of fuzziness in language in cognition or concept.