Vague Language

Este artículo examina los aproximativos aproximadamente y más o menos, considerados en la bibliografía como expresiones sinonímicas. Se indaga su uso a partir del análisis de un macrocorpus formado por cuatro géneros discursivos que abarcan el continuo variacional que va desde el registro informal hasta el formal. El análisis efectuado revela notorias diferencias entre ambos adverbios focales: aproximadamente es más propio del medio escrito, está vinculado a la cuantificación y adquiere otros valores pragmáticos en pocas ocasiones; más o menos, por el contrario, es más frecuente en el medio oral, predica una modificación de la extensión de lo designado y sirve como mecanismo para comunicar otros efectos pragmáticos, entre ellos, la atenuación.

This book is an introduction in a double sense. It is intended to introduce beginners in philosophy to the idea of philosophical nonsense and the problems it raises. But it is also addressed to professional philosophers, most of whom seem virtually unaware of the issue.

Certain philosophers, here called ‘nonsensicalists’, believe that much philosophy (philosophical questions as well as assertions) is simply nonsense in the strict sense of being meaningless. They proceed as though it were an established fact that there is such a thing as philosophical nonsense and the notion were quite unproblematic. By contrast, many other philosophers proceed as though either they had never heard of it or it were quite obvious that there is no such thing.

There can be little doubt that what the nonsensicalists are saying is of great importance – if they are right. But there are at least eight questions that must be addressed before anyone is in a position to start hunting down philosophical nonsense and they have all been woefully neglected.

The idea of philosophical nonsense goes back to Thomas Hobbes at least and yet its history remains largely unresearched.

In view of the neglect of the problems raised by the notion of philosophical nonsense, even by professional philosophers, it is not unduly optimistic to suggest that it is a topic to which relative newcomers to the subject might make a contribution.

Ludwig Wittgenstein thought that good philosophy unties the knots in our thinking that bad philosophy has put there and must make movements as complicated as the knots it unties. Is the notion of philosophical nonsense an essential aid to this – as Wittgenstein himself thought – or just another knot?

Research on teenage language has been growing steadily during tha last decades, covering quite a few linguistic features and their youth specific effects on communication. Nevertheless, very little contrastive research has been devoted to these aspects. Questions like: What do the different varieties of teenage language have in common? and What is the difference between them? have not been raised, which is probably dued to the lack of corpora. In this study, which is based on two corpora of teenage talk, we compare some aspects of London and Madrid teenage talk. As is well known, teenagers are critised not only for their use of slang, but also taboo words and their abundant use of pragmatic markers. However, not only pragmatic markers but also taboo words have a pragmatic effect.

La investigación del lenguaje juvenil ha crecido de forma paulatina durante las últimas décadas, cubriendo no pocos rasgos lingüísticos y sus efectos comunicativos, específicos de la juventud. No obstante, la investigación del aspecto contrastivo brilla por su ausencia. Cuestiones del tipo: ¿Qué tienen en común las diferentes variantes del lenguaje juvenil? y ¿En qué se distinguen? apenas se han tocado, consecuencia, sin duda, de la falta de corpora. En este trabajo, que se basa en dos corpora de lenguaje juvenil, comparamos algunos aspectos del lenguaje los adolescentes de Londres y de Madrid. Como es bien sabido, los adolescentes destacan y son criticados, no solo por su uso excesivo del argot, sino por su uso de palabras tabú y demasiados marcadores pragmáticos. No solo son los marcadores pragmáticos los que tienen un efecto pragmático sino que las palabras tabú pueden tenerlo también.

Indeterminacy in language is commonly resorted to for a variety of reasons, in
several different forms. After touching on the fuzzy boundaries of indeterminacy with respect to vagueness and ambiguity, several linguistic devices (among which, unexpectedly, also cardinal numbers) are introduced and discussed in relation to the prototypical form of dialogue, the role of context/co-text, and the interactional level. Not surprisingly, ‘interaction’ turns out to be a key word in understanding the widespread recourse to indeterminacy in dialogue, especially in face-to-face situations, which provide interactants with a wide range of contextual components. These are useful for retrieving the overall picture and, in certain cases, making it clear, also thanks to multiple resources that are integrated in the dialogic development and in the process of understanding.
Unavoidably, indeterminacy in dialogue, a complex phenomenon, has to be dealt with in an integrated perspective.

What sort of logic do we get if we adopt a supervaluational semantics for vagueness? As it turns out, the answer depends crucially on how the standard notion of validity as truth preservation is recasted. There are several ways of doing that within a supervaluational framework, the main alternative being between “global” construals (e.g., an argument is valid iff it preserves truth-under-all-precisifications) and “local” construals (an argument is valid iff, under all precisifications, it preserves truth). The former alternative is by far more popular, but I argue in favor of the latter, for (i) it does not suffer from a number of serious objections, and (ii) it makes it possible to restore global validity as a defined notion.

In this article, we present a corpus-based analysis to illustrate the extent and the depth of the similarities in the use of Vagueness Expressions (VEs) in spoken Italian and German. Adopting a semiotic approach to the study of vagueness, we have investigated the frequency and the distribution of VEs, conveying informa-tional, relational and discourse vagueness in conversations, non-free-dialogues and monologues. The two languages do not exhibit the same qualitative and quantitative distribution of VEs because (a) German has twice as many VEs as Italian and (b) in Italian VEs are fairly limited to spontaneous conversations, while German speakers use VEs in all kinds of texts conveying the three types of Vagueness. This suggests that in German VEs are part of the linguistic norm, and not only a choice on the part of the speaker.

Few would doubt that one often encounters the preposterous in philosophy.  Some would claim that preposterousness in philosophy is often a matter of literal nonsensicality, i.e. meaninglessness.  Is this plausible or is it itself an example of a preposterous philosophical claim?

Over recent decades the Italian word tipo (Eng. type) has developed numerous non-nominal uses. This paper seeks to address the issue of whether synchronic variation in the use of tipo reflects diachronic development. Findings indicate that, (1) the complex path of grammaticalization of tipo led to the availability of new signs for the expression of vagueness and approximation; (2) the distribution of different non-nominal uses of tipo varies in relation to different dimensions, the most relevant of which is the textual and register variation; (3) the co-presence of multiple meanings and functions of non-nominal tipo does not result in fuzzy morphosyntactic boundaries between different uses of the word, and differences between specific instances of tipo can be represented in terms of prototypical vs. less prototypical realization of categories.

Focusing on the Nigerian academic discourse, the paper argues that scholars, universally, deliberately employ linguistic hedging as a conflict management stratagem to manage conflictual situations in the course of their work. Using corpus linguistics methodologies, the work examines inaugural lectures of the Nigerian academic discourse to establish the usage of linguistic hedging devices in analysing the data. Working with 40 purposively sampled inaugural lectures from 10 faculties/schools, from the Nigerian university, the study categorises the hedging devices into typologies to determine their frequency of usage in analysing the data. Four objectives and four research questions were drawn for the work. The study provides an awareness into the working and understanding of academic discourse generally and helps in the development of technical input in designing teaching materials for academic writing.

Teenagers interact with codes that seem uncomprehensible for people surrounding them, being vague talk one of these codes. In this paper some examples of vague expressions are presented in order to show that VL works as an in-group identity marker. It is also an efficient communicative strategy creating bonds within their members, not caused by unwillingness to think or laziness.

Commas can splice our sentences, and shift their connotations. Our mixed modes for hyphens compound our words as well as confuse them—even dash them to pieces. In written language, how can we know we are asking a question unless we use the proper punctuation? Punctuation is vital to how we communicate. Whether in speech or prose, we punctuate our thoughts. In this sense, we may classify punctuation among what John Wesley calls “God’s many providences” in the sermon “The One Thing Needful” (1733): “designed either to wean us from what is not, or to unite us to what is worthy of our affection. Are they pleasing? Then they are designed to lift up our hearts to the Parent of all good. Are they painful?” Wesley again answers rhetorically, “Then they are means of rooting out those passions that forcibly withhold us from [God]” (§II.4). Indeed, punctuation espouses varied ‘pleasing’ and/or ‘pleasant’ responses.

By now you are either bored, hurt, or elated that I have brought up punctuation as a subject within philosophical God-talk at all (or at least my use of the serial comma in doing so). Beyond merely forcing the point that our punctuation carries meaning—either in addition to or against that which we otherwise intend—I want to suggest that the poetry, prose, and other linguistic media/mediums within our liturgies innately possess meaning(s) which we have the opportunity to punctuate (i.e., ‘sanctify’) as faith communities or else surrender to the individualisms of our so-called (post)modern preferential interpretations: our proverbial run-on sentence protracting philosophical discussions amid this (in)definite period of change we acutely sense but struggle to describe. We are not God’s grammar police. For our part, however, faith communities and their leaders can and must more dutifully approach the task of shaping the nature, meaning, and purpose of our liturgies as worship, not as mere collections of thoughts, words, and actions.

Dans la lignée de mes travaux précédents sur la syntaxe et la sémantique des slogans publicitaires, d'une part, et sur la précision et l'imprécision, d'autre part, je m'interroge, dans la présente étude, sur la valeur de l'imprécis dans les slogans publicitaires en plus. Pourquoi opter pour l'imprécis et le vague dans la démarche de promotion commerciale, alors que le slogan serait en principe censé communiquer de façon compacte un message tranchant permettant à la marque de se distinguer et aux destinataires de capter les avantages du service ou du produit promus dans un laps de temps très court ? Quel serait le rôle de l'imprécis dans la stratégie promotionnelle ? Abstract. Advertising slogans and the art of remaining precisely imprecise. In line with my previous work on the syntax and semantics of advertising slogans, on the one hand, and on accuracy and vagueness, on the other hand, the present paper inquires into the value of vagueness and imprecision in advertising slogans carrying the French adverb plus (eng., more). Why opting for vagueness and imprecision in the process of commercial promotion? Isn't a slogan supposed to communicate a compact and sharp message allowing the brand to distinguish itself and addressees to capture the benefits of the service or the product promoted in a very short time? What roles do vagueness and imprecision play in the promotional strategy?

Wittgenstein has shown that that life, in the sense that applies in the first place to human beings, is inherently linguistic. In this paper, I ask what is involved in language, given that it is thus essential to life, answering that language – or concepts – must be both alive and the ground for life. This is explicated by a Wittgensteinian series of entailments of features. According to the first feature, concepts are not intentional engagements. The second feature brings life back to concepts by describing them as inflectible: Attitudes, actions, conversations and other engagements inflect concepts, i.e. concepts take their particular characters in our actual engagements. However, inflections themselves would be reified together with the life they ground unless they could preserve the openness of concepts: hence the third feature of re-inflectibility. Finally, the openness of language must be revealed in actual life. This entails the possibility of conceptual ambivalence.

Je prendrai la question du vague et de l'articulation avec la philosophie pratique dans l'hypothèse que cette dernière n'a pas uniquement à déterminer des normes et des valeurs, et qu'elle n'a pas pour unique objet d'expliciter un niveau éthique. Mon objectif est de montrer la clarification des problèmes liées à l'identification des situations que nous pouvons en attendre.

Despite corpus linguistic methods have been increasingly used in several fields within applied linguistics, they are not yet widely adopted in stylistic analysis of literary texts. The paper, therefore, aims to explore the use of vague language in contemporary Russian literary discourse, based on two case-studies: it adopts a micro-diachronic approach to trace the grammaticalization and pragmaticalization path of the approximation markers tipa and vrode 'kind of ' within two quantitatively comparable sub-corpora of literary works (1955-1992 period and 1995-2015 period) extracted from the Russian National Corpus. It has been found that the corpus based approach can provide useful insights for the study of language in literary works, bridging the gap between applied linguistics and literary discourse.

The study of agent helpers using linguistic strategies such as vague language and politeness has often come across obstacles. One of these is the quality of the agent's voice and its lack of appropriate fit for using these strategies. The first approach of this article compares human vs. synthesised voices in agents using vague language. This approach analyses the 60,000-word text corpus of participant interviews to investigate the differences of user attitudes towards the agents, their voices and their use of vague language. It discovers that while the acceptance of vague language is still met with resistance in agent instructors, using a human voice yields more positive results than the synthesised alternatives. The second approach in this article discusses the development of a novel multimodal corpus of video and text data to create multiple analyses of human-agent interaction in agent-instructed assembly tasks. The second approach analyses user spontaneous facial actions and...

The study of agent helpers using linguistic strategies such as vague language and politeness has often come across obstacles. One of these is the quality of the agent's voice and its lack of appropriate fit for using these strategies. The first approach of this article compares human vs. synthesised voices in agents using vague language. This approach analyses the 60,000-word text corpus of participant interviews to investigate the differences of user attitudes towards the agents, their voices and their use of vague language. It discovers that while the acceptance of vague language is still met with resistance in agent instructors, using a human voice yields more positive results than the synthesised alternatives. The second approach in this article discusses the development of a novel multimodal corpus of video and text data to create multiple analyses of human-agent interaction in agent-instructed assembly tasks. The second approach analyses user spontaneous facial actions and gestures during their interaction in the tasks. It found that agents are able to elicit these facial actions and gestures and posits that further analysis of this nonverbal feedback may help to create a more adaptive agent. Finally, the approaches used in this article suggest these can contribute to furthering the understanding of what it means to interact with software agents. ACM Reference Format: Leigh Clark, Abdulmalik Ofemile, Svenja Adolphs, and Tom Rodden. 2016. A multimodal approach to assessing user experiences with agent helpers.

Šiuo tyrimu siekiama parodyti, jog tam tikros netikslios kalbos (NK) kategorijos gali būti vartojamos kaip daugiafunkcė komunikacinė strategija, o NK vartoseną stipriai lemia kontekstas bei diskurso tipas. Šiame darbe analizuojama viena NK kategorija – kiekiniai žymikliai (KŽ; pvz., daug, šiek tiek, mažai). Tyrimas apima šių leksinių vienetų vartoseną lietuvių sakytiniame diskurse, kuris lyginamas su rašytiniu diskursu siekiant išryškinti skirtingų žymiklių paplitimą keliuose diskurso tipuose. Tyrime remiamasi duomenimis, surinktais iš Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstyno (DLKT, tekstynas.vdu.lt), o rezultatai aptariami ir interpretuojami iš tekstynų lingvistikos, variantinės sociolingvistikos, pragmatikos ir diskurso analizės perspektyvos. Rezultatai rodo, jog KŽ dažniau vartojami sakytiniame diskurse, tačiau kai kurie žymikliai būdingesni tam tikriems rašytiniams tekstams. Labiausiai KŽ dažnumas, panašu, priklauso ir nuo oficialumo lygio: kuo oficialesnis bendravimas ar tekstas, tuo mažiau KŽ vartojama. Taip pat pastebėta, jog didelius kiekius žymintys KŽ yra (gerokai) dažnesni nei mažus kiekius žymintieji visuose diskurso tipuose, tačiau sakytiname diskurse skirtumas tarp šių dviejų KŽ tipų yra visai nežymus. Pragmatiniu požiūriu KŽ atlieka svarbias komunikacines funkcijas: vertina pasakymo stiprumą, yra vartojami kaip mandagumo strategija bei yra svarbūs kuriant diskurso struktūrą.

This paper provides a definition of mitigation based on three interconnected dimensions: cognitive, rhetorical/social, and linguistic. According to the definition provided, some specific requirements from all three dimensions must be met for a linguistic expression to be considered an instance of pragmatic mitigation (self-image protection, communicative effectiveness and some specific semantic-pragmatic characteristics mainly related with Levinson's (2000) M-heuristics, respectively). The definition builds on previous contributions and considers important descriptive problems, such as the heterogeneity of the linguistic mechanisms used to express mitigation and the partiality or incompleteness of some definitions, which consider mitigation from a single perspective and are therefore only valid for specific contexts, genres or varieties.