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11 - Vague Language from a Pragmatic Perspective

from Part II - Key Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2022

By
Grace Qiao Zhang
Edited by
Istvan Kecskes
Istvan Kecskes
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Albany
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Summary

This chapter presents a comprehensive review of vague language studies from a pragmatic perspective. An utterance is vague when it conveys unspecific meaning. For example, “Many friends attended her birthday party,” how many is many? 20, 100 or 200? Our interpretation of “many” may vary from individual to individual, from context to context. Vague language is fluid, stretchable, and strategic. It consists of various types, including approximators, vague quantifiers, placeholder words, vague category identifiers, general terms, intensifiers, softeners, and epistemic stance markers. This chapter serves as a guide for understanding the characteristics of vague language. The discussion involves the conceptual frameworks and features of vague language, which are illustrated by examples and research drawn from intercultural corpora. This chapter reviews the theorization of vague language, its linguistic categories and pragmatic functions, vague language use in intercultural communication, and includes suggestions for future research. Vague language plays a crucial role in intercultural communication and its pragmatic functions, such as mitigation, politeness, and self-protection, form an important part of the strategic moves used in effective language interactions. This chapter provides an important contribution to the field of intercultural pragmatics.

Keywords

vague languageelasticityprecise utterancesnative English speakersimplicationsquantifierssocialization
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Pragmatics , pp. 274 - 300
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

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Additional Resources

Theoretical frameworks relevant to VL:

Seminal work on VL:

VL works from the perspective of pragmatics:

VL works in intercultural pragmatics:

Grice, P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In Cole, P. and Morgan, J., eds., Syntax and Semantics, Vol. III: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press, pp. 41–58.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. [1986] (1995). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Zhang, G. (2015). Elastic Language: How and Why We Stretch Our Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Channell, J. (1994). Vague Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cutting, J. (2007). Vague Language Explored. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hyland, K. (1998). Hedging in Scientific Research Articles. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Jucker, A. H., Smith, S. W., and Lüdge, T. (2003). Interactive aspects of vagueness in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 1737–1769.Google Scholar
Parvaresh, V. (2018). “We are going to do a lot of things for college tuition”: Vague language in the 2016 US presidential debates. Corpus Pragmatics, 2(2), 167–192.Google Scholar
Parvaresh, V. and Zhang, G. (2019). Vagueness and elasticity of “sort of” in TV discussion discourse in the Asian Pacific (Special issue). Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 29(1), 1–132.Google Scholar
Ruzaitė, J. (2007). Vague Language in Educational Settings: Quantifiers and Approximators in British and American English. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Sabet, P. and Zhang, G. (2015). Communicating through Vague Language: A Comparative Study of L1 and L2 Speakers. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Zhang, G. (2011). Elasticity of vague language. Intercultural Pragmatics, 8, 571–599.Google Scholar
Cheng, W. (2007). The use of vague language across spoken genres in an intercultural Hong Kong corpus. In Cutting, J., ed., Vague Language Explored. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 161–181.Google Scholar
Cheng, W. and Warren, M. (2001). The use of vague language in intercultural conversations in Hong Kong. English World-Wide, 22(1), 81–104.Google Scholar
Terraschke, A. and Holmes, J. (2007). “Und tralala”: Vagueness and general extenders in German and New Zealand English. In Cutting, J., ed., Vague Language Explored. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 198–220.Google Scholar

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