Drawing a Line in the Sand: A pragmatic theory of vagueness (original) (raw)
Related papers
Towards a Pragmatic Solution to the Problem of Vagueness
Atomi University Humanities Forum, 2018
This paper examines how reference, sense, and pragmatic issues are taken to be constitutive of meaning, and argues that pragmatics has been systematically undervalued in semantical theorizing. Affording pragmatics its proper place in semantics is argued to enable a resolution of the problem of vagueness and the sorites paradox.
Vague language: A critical reading
Research Society and Development, 2022
Vague language is observed in language elements that make the meaning unclear. In this pragma-linguistic paper, the authors aim to review the different proposed theories and definitions of vague language that were suggested in the middle of the past century. Through discourse analysis of vague usage, authors justify politeness in communication, gender, culture, press releases, and education. Authors found that there is dissatisfaction among speakers with describing the terminologies and possible meanings of a text. Another promising finding is that the vague language creates controversial semantics and pragmatics discussions among discourse genre specialists. The listener's comprehension of quantifiers and linguistic approximators is limited to an exact number of vague words; thus, speakers are strongly recommended to avoid using vagueness in their speeches.
Interactive aspects of vagueness in conversation
Journal of Pragmatics, 2003
Vagueness in reference is often seen as a deplorable deviation from precision and clarity. Using a relevance theoretical framework of analysis, we demonstrate instead that vague expressions may be more effective than precise ones in conveying the intended meaning of an utterance. That is, they may carry more relevant contextual implications than would a precise expression. In introducing entities into a conversation, we found that vague referring expressions often served as a focusing device, helping the addressee determine how much processing effort should be devoted to a given referent. In characterising events and experiences, they may indicate a closer or looser assignment of a characteristic to a conceptual category. For expressing quantities, they may convey the speaker's attitude about the quantity itself, and they may convey assumptions about the speaker's and/or the hearer's beliefs. They may be used to directly express the degree of commitment a speaker makes to a proposition, or they may convey other propositional attitudes such as newsworthiness and personal evaluation more indirectly. Finally, they may serve social functions such as engendering camaraderie and softening implicit criticisms. They may thus be seen as managing conversational implicature. Our analysis is based on a corpus of semi-controlled spoken interactions between California students, who were asked to converse on specific topics, such as movies, sports or opera. Following the categories proposed by Channell (Channell, Joanna. 1994. Vague Language. Oxford University Press, Oxford), we analysed examples of vague additives, i.e., approximators, downtoners, vague category identifiers and shields, and examples of lexical vagueness, i.e., vague quantifying expressions, vague adverbs of frequency, vague adverbs of likelihood, and placeholder words. Such expressions are used regularly in everyday conversations and they rarely lead to detectable misunderstandings; we argue that their success depends on the exploitation of common ground. # (A.H. Jucker).
Going beyond basic clarifications on vagueness, this essay aims to give vibrant, though very concise answers to four questions: (a) Are ‘vagueness’ and ‘ambiguity’ two equated phenomena? (b) What are the general forms and functions of linguistic vagueness? (c) What are the conceptual aspects of vagueness?, and (d) If vagueness is the consequence of communicative context, then, is it fair to be still adherent to Gricean tradition (Grice, 1975), and attribute ‘semanticity’ to linguistic expressions?
Some Remarks on Vagueness and a Dynamic Conception of Language
The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1995
I think the best way to appreciate Williamson's ingenious paper is to see it as showing the inadequacy of the currently accepted parameters of discussion. It would be a mistake to regard the simple incredibility of the epistemic theory as already disqualifying it from serious attention. Williamson and his fellow buccaneers (i.e., Sorenson, et al.
Unruly words: a study of vague language
Choice Reviews Online, 2014
After twenty years as one of the most prominent contributors to the philosophical debate on vagueness, Diana Raffman has finally published her first book on this topic. She has abandoned her earlier view that vagueness is to be analysed as a form of context-sensitivity, 1 and offers a new theory of vagueness, which aims to combine features that have previously been regarded as incompatible: a semantic (non-epistemic) analysis of vagueness and a classical logic and semantics for vague language. 2 In support of her view, Raffman puts forward not only sophisticated philosophical arguments, but also empirical results gathered from psychological studies of how ordinary speakers actually use vague words. All of this is presented in an engaging and clear, yet relaxed prose, making these highly original and interesting thoughts easily accessible to anyone with an interest in vagueness and related issues. In view of this, Unruly Words is likely to become as least as influential as Raffman's previous groundbreaking work in this area. The book is divided into five chapters. The first, introductory chapter offers a review of previous theories and some initial observations about the character of vagueness and its relation to other features with which it often co-occurs, like gradability and context-sensitivity. Chapter two presents an alternative analysis of borderline cases, called the Incompatibilist Analysis (IA), according to which borderline cases should be defined in terms of contraries, like 'green' and 'blue' rather than in terms of contradictories, like 'blue' and 'not-blue'. Chapter three develops a semantic framework for accommodating some varieties of context-sensitivity typically exhibited by vague words, captured under the label 'V-index sensitivity'. V-index sensitivity is compared with indexicality-the contextual variability in reference exhibited by expressions like 'I', 'here' and 'now'-and Raffman convincingly argues that these two, despite some commonalities, are importantly different. Even more importantly,
Contextualist theories of vagueness
2012
During the last couple of decades, several attempts have been made to come up with a theory that can handle the various semantic, logical and philosophical problems raised by the vagueness of natural languages. One of the most influential ideas that have come into fashion in recent years is the idea that vagueness should be analysed as a form of context sensitivity. Such contextualist theories of vagueness have gained some popularity, but many philosophers have remained sceptical of the prospects of finding a tenable contextualist solution to the problems of vagueness. This paper provides an introduction to the most popular contextualist accounts, and a discussion of some of the most important arguments for and against them.
An information-based discussion of vagueness
10th IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems. (Cat. No.01CH37297), 2001
The issue of understanding and modeling vagueness was already addressed by many authors, especially in the second half of the XXieth century. In this paper, we try to provide an organized discussion of different categories of vagueness, pointing out circumstances where they appear. They all lead to a trichotomy of the universe of discourse, which seems to be the common feature of the different forms of vagueness. Basic representations frameworks are proposed for each case. The paper does not advocate a particular view against others but rather identify the characteristic features of each situation.