3。1 Definition of Business English Negotiation
There are numerous ways to define negotiation。 Many negotiators and researchers have been trying to assign a working definition of negotiation from different viewpoint。 James Wall holds the view that business negotiation is a process through goods or services and attempt to agree upon rate of exchange for them (James 17)。 Way Max defines it as a process in which two or more parties, who have both common interests and conflicting interests, put forth and discuss explicit proposals concerning specific terms of a possible agreement (Max 15)。 However, the definition of business negotiation which is accepted by most people is put forward by Yu Muhong in Business English Negotiation, that is an activity process that the different economic parties for the sake of their own economic interests and in order to meet the others' needs, through communication, negotiation, compromise, cooperation, strategy and various other ways to determine possible business opportunities (Yu 2)。 It is true that the process of negotiation involve so much hard work, but all of the definitions share a common idea that negotiation is really a complex activity。 Thus, business negotiation is a kind of process of communication in the economic activity, whose basic goal is to obtain consensus or other results through the exchange of information。论文网
3。2 Stages of Business English Negotiation
According to Analysis on the strategies of each stage in business negotiation wrote by Jia Lei, a whole business negotiation consists of three stages: the beginning stage, the consultation stage and the transaction stage (Jia Strategies 68)。
First, the beginning stage。 This stage is the initial stage of negotiations。 The two sides should communicate with each other on the interests they want to acquire, and declare the methods and advantages that they can meet the needs of the other。 The key step in this stage is to understand what the real need of the others, so the main skill is to ask more questions to know about the actual needs of each other。 At the same time, both parties’ interests also should be stated according to the situation。 Because the more you understand the real needs of the other side, the more you can know how to meet the needs of them, and similarly, only in this way can the other side satisfy your demands。
Second, the consultation stage。 This stage is the intermediate stage of negotiations。 The two sides communicate with each other, and they often state their interests in order to understand the actual needs of the other party。 However, the agreement reached in this way can not necessarily maximize the interests of both sides。 In other words, the benefits are often not effective in achieving balance。 Even if the balance is reached, the agreement may not be the best solution。 Therefore, both sides of the negotiations need to find better solutions to solve the question for the two sides in order to obtain the maximum benefits of their own。
Third, the transaction stage。 This stage is often the crucial stage of negotiations。 At this stage, the negotiating parties through confrontation and compromise, seeking common points while reserving or removing difference, basically or to a certain extent achieve their own purposes, so the negotiation ends up with signing on the agreement。
4。 Fuzzy Language
The basic norms of traditional linguistics require the language to be clear and correct。 But because the ambiguity of the objective boundary and different angles of the observation of things lead to inconsistency in language use, the Fuzzy Language becomes an inevitable existence。文献综述
4。1 Definition of Fuzzy Language
Although there are many definitions of Fuzzy Language, there is no consensus definition of the term of Fuzzy Language in linguistics。 Different people have different viewpoints on this term。 Joanna Channell defines Fuzzy Language as an expression or word which is vague if it can be contrasted with another word or expression which appears to render the same proposition (Channell 3)。 B。 Russell holds the view that the whole language is somewhat fuzzy to a certain degree。 And he points out that a proposition is vague where there are possible states of things concerning which it is intrinsically uncertain and whether they have been contemplated by the speaker (Russell 84)。 By intrinsically uncertain we mean not uncertain in consequence of any ignorance of the interpreter, but because the speaker's habit of language was indeterminate。 However, Wu Tieping mentions in his book An Analysis on Fuzzy Language that in human language, the concepts that many words express have no clear extension, and there are some objects which are lack of definite boundary, and this is "Fuzzy Language", which is now considered as the authoritative definition of Fuzzy Language (Wu 181)。 Compared with the exact language, Fuzzy Language has greater generalization and flexibility, this generalization and flexibility is reflected in the language extension。 Fuzzy Language is one of the basic characteristics of language。 In some specific contexts, if people want to make the language more euphemistic, more vague and more flexible, they often use the Fuzzy Language。