模糊语言的语用功能及其对英语教学的启示
【Abstract】 Vagueness is one of the essential properties of language. Linguists consider vagueness to be of crucial importance for its efficient usage in everyday communication. This paper includes a widely existing phenomenon in human communication---vague language and its pragmatic function. It is composed of six parts, with Chapter Five as its core which apply the use of vague language in English teaching. In the hope of having a clear definition of vagueness, the author first tries to tell the difference between three confusing concepts---vagueness, ambiguity, and generality. Before the author’s version of the definition is given, he shows different opinions of different linguists about the definition so as to have a better understanding of the definition of vagueness. Then the paper studies vague language from the pragmatic perspective, observing the two main pragmatic principles: “Cooperative Principle” and “Politeness Principle” and see how the two principles explain the adoptation of vague language in people’s daily life. In the next part of this paper, it centers on its communicative functions: giving right amount of information, deliberately withholding information, etc. This paper holds that vague language, just like precise language, is also a useful means of exchanging ideas. The appropriate use of vague language does not hinder any effective language communication. Instead, it can, in many cases, make linguistic expressions more natural and graceful; conveys human feeling and thoughts more effectively. Then comes the most important and enlightening part, the practical use of vague language in English teaching. That is to say, a conscious and meaningful use of vague language would greatly help the teacher to accomplish the goal of effective teaching. From the point of view of pragmatics, a comprehensive, systematic study of vague language will be of vital importance in learning and teaching English.
【Key Words】 vague language; Pragmatics; communication; pragmatic function; teaching
【摘 要】 模糊性是语言的基本属性之一，语言学家们指出语言的模糊性并不是无足轻重，制造障碍的因素，相反它保证了交际的有效进行。本文介绍了一种广泛存在于人类言语交际中的语言现象---模糊语言，并对其语用功能进行分析。本文由六个章节组成，第五章是重点，主要讲述模糊语言在教学中的运用。作者希望给出模糊语言一个清楚的定义，先分辨了三个易混淆的概念----模糊性、歧义性及概括性。作者还考察了不同的语言学家给模糊性下的各自不同的定义，然后给出自己的定义，这样让读者才能更好地了解什么是模糊语言。而后文章从语用学的角度，遵循两个语用学主要的原则----“合作原则”和“礼貌原则”，来解释为何人们在日常生活中使用模糊语言。本文接下来的部分就重点阐述了模糊语言的语用功能，如给出适量的信息、故意隐瞒部分信息等语用功能。本文认为：同精确语言一样，模糊语言也是一种有用的表意手段。合理地使用模糊语言，不仅能使语言表达更加自然、得体，有效地传载人们的思想和感情。而后就是本文的最重要也是最有启示意义的部分----模糊语言在英语教学中的实际运用。也就是说，有意识地、有意义地运用模糊语言可以使教师的教学更加有效。从语用角度对模糊语言进行全面、系统的研究对如何正确地理解和使用模糊语言，成功地进行言语交际,及其在英语的学习和教学过程中具有十分重要的意义。
【关键词】 模糊语言；语用学；交际；语用功能；教学
1. Introduction
People have many beliefs about language. An important one is that good use of language involves clarity and precision. It is true under some circumstances. For example, you will leave for Beijing for a meeting. So you have to telephone the airline to book a ticket for the plane. You ask the attendant “What is the time of the flight to Beijing,” and the attendant should answer “at 6:15” or “at 9:05”, etc, (the precise time), rather than “this afternoon”. Therefore, it is believed that either ambiguity or imprecision or vagueness is to be avoided.
However, the world itself is more than that simple. Language, which is used in our daily life, cannot and need not be clear and precise all the time, especially in the process of communication. As Joanna Channell put in her book Vague Language, “One of the most useful and enduring insights to come out of the recent study of language use is that speakers and writers tailor their language to make it suitable to the situation.”[1]
In our daily life, vague language is widely used, but speakers often do not realize that the language they are using is vague. We need vague expressions in thinking and communication. Just as Channell says, “Interest in vagueness in language use and meaning has arisen in a number of disciplines: literary criticism, linguistics, psychology, philosophy. Much of it suggests that vagueness is present in a great deal of language use, and that therefore a complete theory of language must have vagueness as an integral component.”[2]
Vagueness of language is a universal phenomenon. As a basic feature of natural language, vagueness is embodied in various aspects of language such as speech sounds, words meaning, syntactic rules, etc. More and more scholars have probed this field, but they still have different opinions on what vagueness refers to. Vague language is neither all “bad” nor all “good” and is playing an important part in human communication. What matters is that vague language is used appropriately and is right for the purpose of human communication.
Due to the reason that vague language, the concept itself, is complex, this paper will focus on vague language from the angle of how it is applied into authentic human communication. It is hoped that such a study could help people understand the feasibility of the existence of vague terms and form a kind of vague thinking and initiate Chinese learners of English to adopt vague expressions appropriately in their speech, and consequently, help them become more efficient in intercultural communications. This paper also strives to bring to light certain aspects of pragmatic vagueness, to be more exact, the positive function of vague language in communication. Furthermore, it tries to apply the study to some aspects of language teaching.
2. Vague Language
2.1 Three confusing concepts---vagueness, ambiguity, generality
“Vagueness”, “ambiguity”, “generality” share the characteristic of conveying imprecise or unspecified information; accordingly, to differ them is beneficial for one to understand “vagueness”.
Ambiguity is defined as “expressions which have more than one semantically unrelated meaning”.[3] In other words, an expression is ambiguous if it has several paraphrases which are not paraphrases of each other. Ambiguity most possibly appears in sentences without a particular context or particular background information. For instance, without context, the following sentences may have different interpretations:
(1) He went into a dark room.
(2) His mother says he may go.
The sentences above can be made clear by adding some words or changing the sentence pattern. Therefore sentence (1) has two possible interpretations:
a. He went into a room with no light.
b. He went into a room that is used for processing photographs.
Sentence (2) has the following two possible interpretations:
a. His mother says he is allowed to go.
b. His mother says it is possible for him to go.
Generality is a universal feature of meaning. Zhang Qiao defines generality as “the meaning of an expression is general in the sense that it does not specify details, i.e. generality is a matter of unspecification. For example, the meaning of city is general because it does not specify whether or not a city is big or small, modern or ancient”. [4] And another example, my friend is general, as it could mean a female friend, a male friend, or a friend from other countries.
The word chair can be used to refer to chairs with different shapes, different sizes, and which are made of different materials. When referring to different kinds of chairs, the word chair just shows its generality. Only when it is hard to draw a clear line between what is a chair and what is not a chair does vagueness appear. Although vagueness differs from generality, it is closely related to generality. If there is no generality, there will be no vagueness. However, being general does not necessarily mean being vague. Almost all units in language are general, but not all expressions are vague.
Vagueness is defined here as “an expression or a word which has one meaning but more than one possible interpretation”. [5] That is to say, vagueness is seen where distinct meanings cannot be identified.
Vagueness usually appears when a pronoun has no clear reference. Pronouns may have two or more references and this will result in vagueness. For example:
(3) Jim says to Bob that he is a handsome man.
There is no context in this sentence. The word he may have three references.
A1. Jim says to Bob that Jim himself is a handsome man.
B1. Jim says to Bob that Bob is a handsome man.
C1. Jim says to Bob that someone else is a handsome man.
Changing the sentence pattern can bring clear reference. In the case above we can change the indirect speeches into the direct speeches.
A2. Jim says to Bob, “I am a handsome man.”
B2. Jim says to Bob, “You are a handsome man.”
C2. Jim says to Bob, “He is a handsome man.”
Obviously, vagueness can be got rid of in a particular context.
As we have identified the different concepts related to vagueness, we will better understand it.
2.2 Different opinions of different linguists
If one wants to get a unanimous definition of vagueness, he will find it a failure. The term “vagueness” seems very hard to be defined since different people have different views. As to the definition of vagueness, different linguists have given their different statements.
Pierce, as the originator of the notion of vagueness in language, was the first to try to formulate the notion in a rigorous way, as follows:
“A proposition is vague where there are possible states of things concerning which it is intrinsically uncertain whether, had they been contemplated by the speaker, he would have regarded them as excluded or allowed by the proposition. By intrinsically uncertain we mean not uncertain in consequence of any ignorance of the interpreter, but because the speaker’s habits of language were indeterminate; so that one day he would regard the proposition as excluding, another as admitting, those states of things. Yet this must be understood to have reference to what might be deduced from a perfect knowledge of his state of mind; for it is precisely because these questions never did, or did not frequently, present themselves that this habit remained indeterminate.” [6]
That is to say, the language system permits speakers to produce utterances without having decided whether certain facts are excluded or allowed by them. For example, whether “a 1.62-meter-high girl” is excluded or allowed by the proposition “she is a tall girl” is difficult to judge for there are many different states of things. Comparing with a 5-year-old girl, she is certainly tall, while among the female basketball players she is too short. This is caused by the vague upper and bottom limitations of the word.
Crystal and Davy put forward the view that “vagueness is on a scale related to the formality of the occasion, and that speakers can, if they choose, be more precise”. [7] They note that speakers in their extracts mark vagueness by use of certain expressions. Among those cited are: something like that, or something, somewhere, probably, and in a way.
Ullmann, tracing from Plato to Byron a recurrent feeling of the inadequacy of language to express thought, particularly because of its lack of precision, describes such words causing the inadequacy of language as “words with blurred edges”. He notes the converse feeling among poets and creative writers, that such vagueness is in fact an advantage. And he goes on to point out another aspect of vagueness:
“If one looks more closely at this vagueness one soon discovers that the term is itself rather vague and ambiguous: the condition it refers to is not a uniform feature but has many aspects and may result from a variety of causes. Some of these are inherent in the very nature of language, whereas others come into play only in special circumstances.
So, he took much interest in the study of vague language. In his work, he attributes vagueness to four factors:
a. generic character of words;
b. meaning is never homogeneous (i.e. it is context-bound);
c. lack of clear-cut boundaries in the non-linguistic world;
d. lack of familiarity with what the words stand for.” [8]
Lakoff, who shares the same opinion with Ullmann, defines vagueness as “words whose job it is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy”. [9]
2.3 My version of the definition
From the point of my view, in a broader sense, we can use “fuzziness” to mean vagueness, that is, the meanings of the words have no definite boundaries; in a narrower sense, vagueness is a language unit: vague words or expressions, that is, an expression or a word which has one meaning but more than one possible interpretation under different contexts and for different pragmatic purposes.
3. The relations of vague language with the two pragmatic principles
The introduction of last section has given one a rough idea about what vague language is, but this is not for one to understand it because understanding vague language is closely connected with the pragmatic matter. As one knows, language is the product of a society and is used as a bridge for people’s communication. Vague terms, as a component of vocabulary, which are also essential for one to communicate with others, should be studied from the pragmatic angle. If the study of vague terms is kept from their pragmatic function, it is, of course, not a trenchant one. This section is based on the two famous communicative principles (Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle) and sees how the two salient communicative principles explain the phenomena of adopting vague terms in effective communication.
3.1 Vague language and Cooperative Principle
In 1976 Grice proposed that in conversing, human beings follow a behavioral dictum, which he calls Cooperative Principle:
Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.
He stated that natural language expressions, which are used in conversation, are governed by principles, especially the Cooperative Principle, and the following is his description of the four maxims of this principle:
“Quantity
1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Quality Try to make your contribution one that is true.
1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Relation Be relevant.
Manner Be perspicuous.
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
4. Be orderly.” [10]
People often pursue the precise use of language, and they regard that the use of vague language would hinder effective communication. “And sometimes it appears that the use of vague language violates the Cooperative Principle, especially violates the maxim of Quality, the maxim of Quantity, and the maxim of Manner. With regard to the maxim of Quality, the vagueness caused by the use of vague language would devaluate the truth of the information given by the speaker, which may be regarded that the speaker is deliberately withholding the information. As a result, the hearer would not make out whether it is true or not. In regard to the maxim of Quantity, the vagueness caused by the use of vague language would increase or decrease the information given by the speaker. Excessive information would make the hearer feel boring, while too small amount of information would make the hearer feel confused. On the contrary, the use of vague language is the strategy applied by people when they are not certain about something or when they do not want to make clear of something. Therefore, in certain cases, vague language is used to abide by the Cooperative Principle.”[11] For example:
(4) A: Where’s your sister?
B: Out.
B only knows that his sister is not at home instead of knowing the exact location of her. So B adheres to the maxim of Quality (Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence) in order to be cooperative with the help of the meaning of out which might refer to the place wherever his sister is.
(5) He is about 170 centimeter high.
In such a case, the seemingly inadequate information given by the speaker violates the maxim of Quantity (Make your contribution as informative as is required), but because the speaker factually does not know the height, the use of about observes the maxim of Quality (Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence). In this way, the sentence is just informative for the purpose of communication, for it is unnecessary to know the precise height.
(6) A robin is a sort of bird.
The speaker maybe not know that a robin is a kind of bird, so he uses sort of to show his uncertainty. Thus, he abides by the maxim of Quality.
(7) Her salary is something between 2,000 and 3,000.
It seems that the speaker violates the maxim of Quantity, because he fails to provide enough information. But if the speaker factually does not know the exact amount of money she earns, which at the same time, abides by the maxim of Quality.
From the above examples, we can see that people value the maxim of Quality much more than the other maxims. Sometimes people adhere to the maxims and sometimes they violate them deliberately for certain purposes. In most cases, people adhere to one or more maxim but violate another at the same time. And the following examples show that the use of vague language violates the maxim of Cooperative Principle, thus conversational implicature arises.
As the above example (4), if A knows that B knows the exact location of his sister, B’s answer does not give A the right amount of information that A requires and thereby B violates the Maxim of Quantity deliberately. In this case, out seems to be a non-cooperative answer.
(8) A: Let’s get the kids something.
B: Okay, but I veto I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M-S.
B’s utterance is obscure. Its conversational implicature is that B does not like the children to have any ice-cream. So he deliberately violates the Manner Maxim by spelling out the word ice-cream instead of uttering it as a word.
The Cooperative Principle can explain some phenomena why people use vague terms in conversations; however, the CP cannot explain all the situations in which vague terms are adopted. In the next section, another important communicative principle: Politeness Principle will be introduced as a compensation to account for those unexplained phenomena.
3.2 Vague language and Politeness Principle
Apart from Cooperative Principle, Politeness Principle is another principle, which is usually abided by in conversations. It can demonstrate the social distance, status, etc. of a speaker, establish one’s good impression, at least save face, and explain some phenomena that the CP cannot account for.
In Principles of Pragmatics, Leech introduces the Politeness Principle, which he regards as the same important as Grice’s Cooperative Principle. The main maxims of the Politeness Principle are: Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modest, Agreement and Sympathy.
“Tact
Minimize cost to other
Maximize cost for self
Generosity
Minimize benefit to self
Maximize praise of other
Approbation
Minimize dispraise of other
Maximize dispraise of self
Modesty
Minimize disagreement between self and other
Maximize sympathy between self and other
Agreement
Minimize disagreement between self and other
Maximize agreement between self and other
Sympathy
Minimize antipathy between self and other
Maximize sympathy between self and other” [12]
Generally speaking, the above six maxims are what people have to observe in daily communication. From the maxims with sub-maxims included, we could make a conclusion that while conversing, the speakers should try to make others benefit more while leave more inconvenience to themselves so as to win approbation from others. And vague terms play an important role in observing the Politeness Principle in conversation especially the hedges, which could make utterances sound more polite. Let’s see some examples and see the specific role of vague terms in adhering to the Politeness Principle, and how the Politeness Principle explains the use of vague terms in communication.
For instance, someone asks you, “Is A in the classroom now”, if you just give him an answer as “I don’t know”, you indeed have conveyed your meaning clearly. But it sounds rude and unfriendly. Whereas if you answer as “Probably not”, though it sounds a little vague, you would convey the basic information and the hearer may think you are polite and well-educated. Some other examples:
(9) I’ve got a bit of a problem.
This sentence, comparing with “I’ve got a problem”, seems to be more polite because here a bit is a vague term, which reduces the implied cost to the hearer. With the vague term, the request costs less, and it is more polite. Thus, this sentence abides by the Tact Maxim.
(10) I was wondering if you could do me a favor.
(11) A: How do you like my new coat?
B: I don’t have an eye for beauty, I am afraid.
(12) You are mistaken, it seems to me.
In sentence (10), with the hedge “I was wondering”, the speaker makes his request politely, which observes the maxim of Tact. In sentence (11), the er does not answer the question directly, which violates the maxim of Relation, but it observes the Approbation Maxim, Modesty Maxim, and Agreement Maxim. As regard to sentence (12), it dispraises the listener, but the speaker uses “it seems to me”, the meaning becomes uncertain, and it, at the same time, conveys the care the speaker expresses to the hearer, which adheres the maxim of Tact and Sympathy.
(13) Your coat is a little bit dirty.
The speaker uses a little bit, which observes the Approbation Maxim.
From what we discussed above, using vague terms in some situations is a good strategy to observe the basic principles in communication: being cooperative or polite.
4. The communicative functions of vague language
From the last section of the study of the relations with the two main pragmatic principles, we can conclude the pragmatic functions of vague terms.
4.1 Giving the right amount of information
According to the maxim of Quantity, there are two principles: (i) Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). (ii) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Vague expressions are just the device which speakers use to tailor their contributions so that they give the right amount of information for the purpose of the conversation. For example:
(14) We had a procession of 10,000 people.
The “10,000 people” in the sentence is not necessary to be the exact number.
4.2 Deliberately withholding information
“Under some circumstances, the speaker does not want to offer the precise information. So they use vague terms deliberately to solve this problem.” [14] For example:
(15) She is about 29 years old.
This appears to be withholding the exact age, since when questioned, the speaker claimed she had used this form because women do not like to be said to be thirty.
4.3 Lexical gaps
“Speakers sometimes make use of vagueness to convey meaning in situations where they do not have at their disposal the necessary words or phrases for the concepts they wish to express. In this way, people can and often do think about concepts which they cannot really talk about.” [15] For example:
(16) A: What does your friend do for a living?
B: She is one of those persons who look after people in a hospital.
A: You mean she is a nurse.
B: Yes, that is the word I was looking for.
Related to this is the temporary lexical gap, which occurs when a speaker cannot remember a word or a name. For example:
(17) “Susan has gone out with what’s-his-name---you know, the boy with the curly hair.” [16]
4.4 Lacking specific information
If a speaker lacks specific information, an observable ploy is to use vague terms. For example:
(18) [percentage of university students coming from working class backgrounds]
I can’t remember what the figures are but it’s something around the twenty percent mark and it’s never changed.
The speaker provides clear evidence (I can’t remember) that this vagueness is obligatory since he does not remember the exact number, which also abides by the maxim of Quality (Do not say that for which you lack sufficient evidence).
4.5 Self-protection
Sometimes speaker uses vague terms as a safeguard against later what he said proves to be wrong. For example:
(19) A: What will be the weather like tomorrow?
B: I think maybe it will rain.
4.6 Being polite
When the use of vagueness is the speaker expressing deference to the tutor at the same time as disagreeing with her, the vagueness is used as one way of adhering to the politeness rules for a particular culture, and not threatening face. For example:
(20) “Could we, when you give us our essays back---and give us titles---could we sort of meet or something---because I mean---there might be things we want to ask.” [17]
We have already seen a possible example of deference between the student and the tutor. The student tends to use a lot of uncertainty markers, therefore, the request leaves the tutor some options and does not threaten the tutor’s face.
5. Its enlightenment in English teaching
There has long existed a misunderstanding that in the process of our leaning or teaching, we should always take great notice of the precision of language. But as we can see from the above, vague language plays an important role in daily communication. In this section, which is also the most practical and enlightening one, this paper will focus on its significant pragmatic functions in particular teaching environment and see how it benefits both students and the teacher to achieve effective teaching. Through our practice of teaching, we may be confronted with various unpredictable situations where vagueness may be the only solution to help us get out of a situation of awkwardness. And the use of vague language may sometimes bring about unexpected results. If the teacher can use some vague terms appropriately in the process of teaching, it will not only do good for the students but also for the teacher himself.
5.1 Benefiting the students
Language teaching practice provides the teacher with a vast stage where he or she has every opportunity to reveal vagueness to the students. Exactness is only a relative idea. That is to say, in teaching of a foreign language the teacher should try to avoid over-exactness. The mastery of the language also includes its wonderful vagueness.
5.1.1 Appreciating the beauty from the vagueness
(i) In the literary works
To achieve the effect of subtleness and to leave room for the students to imagine, the use of vague language can get the goal. There is a well-known monologue in one of Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet:
(21) “To be, or not to be---that is the question.”
By such ellipsis, we can infer the perplexity in Hamlet’s deep heart when he was trapped by the condition that father had been murdered, mother remarried his uncle who had killed his father, and evil power was dominant at the court. “To be what or not to be what?” such vague sentence has left us endless ponder.
Different students have different experiences, characters and insights. In the process of teaching, the teacher should train their ability of imagination and improve their judgment of right or wrong, as well as improve their aesthetic judgment.
(ii) In rhetorics
The use of vague language can achieve some rhetoric effects.
The following sentences achieve the effect of exaggeration, for example:
(22) The enemy soldiers were scared like anything.
(23) Your elder sister looks for all the world like your mother.
The following sentences achieve the effects of emphasis, for example:
(24) He is ten times the man you are.
(25) He made a thousand and one excuses.
Of course, the rhetoric effects achieved by the use of vague language are not only the above I have mentioned. The teacher should be aware of the unexpected results from using vagueness and guide the students to master this skill to make their communication or writing more humorous.
5.1.2 Improving students’ writing skills
As far as the students have appreciated the beauty from the proper use of vague language in the literary work and some sentences of rhetoric effects, their compositions will be improved a lot if they can have a good master of vague terms and use them in their compositions appropriately. If they can use them in their narrative compositions, the compositions would become more vivid, more interesting and more readable. If they can use them in their argumentative compositions, the compositions would be more reliable, and more believable.
5.1.3 A better understanding of the culture
“In the course of their learning, the students may pay great attention to the speech sounds, intonation, vocabulary, grammar, and so on. But they usually ignore the importance of the difference of culture. As we know, while communicating, the speech triggered by sounds or written words only takes up a part of the meaning, and the other part is expressed through conversational implicature or culture background. So the teacher should flexibly choose some vague terms according to the culture background and some communicative contexts to enable the students have a better understanding the culture.” [18]
5.1.4 Focusing attention
It is impossible for the students to acquire everything the teacher lectures in class. The students can only bring in valuable information from the teacher. So the teacher can use some vague language to neglect the less important points, thus helps the students to focus their attention on the important ones. In this way, the students can improve their study efficiency.
5.1.5 Saving face
When the students make mistakes, the teacher should avoid damaging their self-respect. Therefore, the teacher should use some vague terms to make his or her utterance more implicit and more enlightened. For example:
(26) “Recently, I found most of the students behave well in the composition assignment, only that some of you didn’t pay much attention to what I told you in class, and their compositions leave a lot to be desired.” [19] Here, the teacher uses recently, most, behave well, some, much, and a lot to present the existing problem and in this way, he saves the students’ faces, which is very enlightening and which is better than the way of calling out the students’ names directly.
5.2 Benefiting the teacher
5.2.1 Enlivening the atmosphere
When the teacher asks questions, they would use a lot of demonstrative pronouns to ease the students and encourage their participation. For example: the teacher would say “Any volunteer”. The reason for the teacher to use the vague language is that our Chinese students act passively in class, and that they do not like to air their views in public, and that they would feel nervous if they are asked to answer the questions. By using the vague terms, the teacher entitles the right to the students to choose to participate or not, in this way, the teacher alleviates the atmosphere in class.
5.2.2 Easing the students
If the teacher assigns tasks in class, he usually uses vague terms to reduce the difficulty and quantity, which could, to some extent, alleviate the students’ rejecting mood to the assignment so that it could achieve effective teaching.
5.2.3 Dealing with uncertainty
The time for a lesson is fixed. Though the teacher has made a careful plan for each task before class, it is unavoidable to meet some unexpected changes in the process of teaching so that the planned time for each task has to be adjusted. In this case, the teacher could use some vague additives, such as about, approximately, or, at least, at most, or so, under, over, etc. For example: “Now class, I will give you about 5 minutes to discuss this topic. And then I will ask 2 or 3 of you to present their ideas. As there are 50 students or so in our class, I would divide you into 13 groups, about 4 in each.” With the vague additives, the teacher makes the organization more flexible.
5.2.4 Giving suggestions
The teacher can use “I am afraid, I think, I would, etc.”, in the assessment of the students activities in the class or in the assessment of their homework. For example: “I think you may sum up the main idea in this way…”, “I would suggest you practise more after class.” The suggestions made in this way would be more acceptable to the students. Thus, the teacher can achieve his or her goal.
5.2.5 Avoiding awkwardness
(i) Unexpected situations
In the process of teaching, there would be many unexpected questions raised by some students due to their curiosity. For example: during a lesson talking about the family tree. The teacher has asked the students to bring a family photo to the class ahead of time. In the class the teacher asks some students to come up to the blackboard to talk about their families, and after that the rest of the class can ask questions about their families. Student A volunteers to talk about his family. After his description of his grand-father, grand-mother, his father and mother, he looks grieved when he describes his uncle. He says, “This young man in the photo is my uncle. He is very handsome and kind-hearted, but he is dead.” On hearing this, the whole class is very sad to hear that. Then, one of the students asks questions about A’s family, “Why is he dead?” A looks at a loss and does not know how to explain. The teacher says, “Something maybe happened to him.” The teacher wants to distract the student’s attention. But the student continues to say, “I am still wondering what happened to him.” The teacher says, “I think you’re very sorry to hear that, right? And we are all sorry to hear that.” Then the teacher asks A to go back to his seat, and continues the lesson. From the example, we can see that how the use of vague terms avoids awkwardness and makes the teaching process more fluent.
(ii) Lexical gap
In the process of teaching, the teacher may sometimes forget the exact word or he does not have at his disposal the necessary words or phrases for the concepts he wishes to express. In this situation, the use of vague terms is the only solution. For example: “When on fire, people usually use, umms…er…kind of tool which contains dry ice and is often seen on the wall in public areas to put out fire.” The teacher forgets the exact word for “fire extinguisher”, and he uses umms…er… to prolong the time for him to think about, and then he uses kind of tool instead of saying the exact word. Since he has described the “tool” exactly, the students could understand his meaning. Thus, the teacher saves his own face.
Furthermore, if the teacher uses vague terms frequently, the students will see the indefiniteness of the teacher’s language, and they would feel the teacher is more sincere and more easy-going, thus, shortens the distance between the teacher and the students, which benefits both the students and the teacher.
In a word, as qualified teachers, we should make the students understand vagueness is the essential properties of language and let the students know more about the language phenomena. And we can also introduce some of the principles of Pragmatics so as to improve their communicative competence.
6. Conclusion
From what we have discussed above, we can see that vague language forms a considerable part of language use. They are part of the linguistic repertoire of a competent language user, who uses them to accomplish particular communicative goals. Vague language is neither all “bad” nor all “good”. It occurs frequently in both speech and writing, but we have seen that many of them occur more frequently in spoken English. The widespread use of vagueness for various purposes and in various situations shows what an important aspect it is of language users’ knowledge of their language.
Nowadays, more and more people in our country are learning English, and one of the most important purposes for them to learn it is to better communicate with the foreigners. Teachers of English surely put great emphasis on the clarity, precision, and care in the use of language. And Chinese learners and teachers devote too much to grammatical rules, so that numerous learners are trained to be experts on grammar but they are incompetent in the real communication. We can see from this thesis, the words used in successful communication are mostly far from precise. “Brown eloquently makes the point that one aspect of acquiring a second language is learning to be imprecise. He suggests that learners of English as a second language often sound bookish and pedantic because they do not know how to use vague expressions.”[20] If people have no access to vague expressions, the range of their communication would be severely restricted. People employ vague language when they fail to remember the correct or exact words, when they are unknowledgeable, when they want to show their politeness and cooperation, when they deliberately withhold information, and so on. And the use of vague language, to some extent, help people save their and the hearers’ faces.
To be qualified teachers, who teach English as a second language, we should first get some general ideas of the theories on vagueness and realize the significant role that vagueness plays in language use. Vagueness creates flexibility. When we are teaching English, we should guide the students to learn how to understand the vague characteristics of language, how to use vague terms appropriately, how to pay attention to the pragmatic functions of vague language so as to achieve successful and effective communication.
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