Fuzzy-valued linguistic soft set theory and multi-attribute decision-making application

In this work, we propose the theory of fuzzy linguistic soft set (FLSS) to represent the uncertainty and multi-angle of view when decision makers evaluate an object during dedsionmaking. FLSS integrates fuzzy set theory, linguistic variable and soft set theory, It allows decision makers to utilize linguistic variables to evaluate an object and utilize fuzzy values to describe the corresponding grade of their support of their decisions. Meanwhile, because of the flexibility of soft set, decision makers can use more than one pair of fuzzy-linguistic evaluations to express their opinions from multiple perspectives directly, if necessary. Therefore, it is more flexible and practical than traditional fuzzy set or 2-dimension uncertainty linguistic variable. We also develop a generalized weighted aggregation operator for FLSSs to solve corresponding decision-making issues. Finally, we give a numerical example to verify the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed method. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.