Abstract Fuzziness, as one of the basic features of language, is a normal phenomenon in both Chinese and English. With the purpose to figure out the similarities and differences in Chinese and English, this paper starts with the introduction of six main features of fuzziness: implicit, concise, comprehensive, summary, dynamic, and flexible in order to show a clear concept of fuzziness. Then, a couple of examples are used to elaborate the similaritities and differences in Chinese and English: the use of color, time, quantity and demonstrative pronuns are similar in Chinese and English; Chinese tends to be more fuzzy than English; they mainly differ in the use of color and number. The paper, aimed to find out the best way to use fuzziness, ends with the conclusion that the appropriate use of fuzziness could express opinions more efficiently and avoid unnecessary embarrassment.62034

Key words: fuzziness; comparison; similaritities and differences; cultural differences 

摘要模糊，作为语言的基本特性之一，在汉语和英文中都是一个常见的现象。以区分中英模糊词的异同为目的，本论文首先介绍了模糊词的六个特点：含蓄性，简约性，包容性，概括性，动态性，灵活性，然后对中英文模糊词进行对比研究，并且辅以大量例子说明，中英文中颜色，时间，数量和指示代词的模糊词存在相同之处；中文相对比英文更模糊；中英文中模糊词的不同之处主要体现在颜色和数字两个方面。本文旨在探究出模糊词在中英文中最合理的使用方式。经过研究与分析，最终发现适当的使用模糊词能够更充分的表达自己的观点并且还能避免不必要的尴尬。 

毕业论文关键词：模糊词；对比；异同点；文化差异

 Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Characteristics of Fuzziness 3

3.1 Implicit 3

3.2 Concise 4

3.3 Comprehensive 4

3.4 Summary 5

3.5 Dynamic 5

3.6 Flexible 6

4. Similarities of Fuzziness in Chinese and English 6

4.1 Color Category 6

4.2 Time Category 7

4.3 Quantity Category 7

4.4 Demonstrative Pronoun Category 8

5. Differences of Fuzziness in Chinese and English 8

5.1 Chinese Tends to Be More Fuzzy than English 9

5.2 Different Use of Colors 10

5.3 Different Use of Numbers 12

6. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14 

1. Introduction 

Along with the development of human language, a great many of words or phases never have strict boundary of the exact notions these words or phrases are referring to, this is called fuzziness. Inevitably, people always use a large number of fuzzy notions or fuzzy words which express fuzzy notions. It’s fair enough to say that, to a certain extent, there is no human language without fuzziness. After further study, people even realize that the inaccurate, fuzzy using of some words accounts for a larger proportion rather than the correct using of those words. It even can not imagine how communication will go on without fuzziness.

Many scholars try to define fuzziness despite an exactly accurate definition which impossibly be found. Usually, seen from linguistics and aesthetics, “fuzziness” is the word mostly accepted while “vagueness” is the word from logistics. However, the word in Chinese broadly covers four categories: fuzziness; vagueness; generality; ambiguity. Unfortunately, the boundary and the cognition of fuzziness are still fuzzy despite scholars both at home and abroad have devoted themselves into distinguishing theses four notions. Miao Dongsheng, a linguist at home, defined fuzziness as: “To some things, we can not find the precise classification criterion. It’s pretty difficult to make clear assertion whether it belongs to a class. The unclear category of these things is known as fuzziness. In short, fuzziness is the unintelligibility of one thing’s category, the gradient of object qualification.”(Miao Dongsheng, 1987: 42)