Lack of specification refers to the meaning of an item is clear, but is only generally specified。 For example, the word “neighbor” refers to different people。 The specification of the word isn’t clear in gender, age, race and so on。 If someone said, “your neighbor is very kind”, according to the sentence, we cannot know who the neighbor is。 If the person said, “your neighbor peter is very kind”。 According to this sentence, we can know the kind neighbor is peter。 This kind of word is very common。 Such as: “friend”, hate”, “freedom”, etc。 All of this kind of word is vague。

d。 Vague Modifiers 

Vague modifiers can be called Hedges。 It is defined as follows by George P。 Lakoff: “for me, some of the most interesting questions are raised by the study of words whose meanings implicitly involve fuzziness。。。 words whose job is to make thing fuzzier or less fuzzy”。 (195) He listed a lot of words or phrases, such as, very, rather, sort of, etc。 Those words or phrases don’t affect the truth, it just mitigate or enhance the meaning。 For example:

 I think it is wrong。

 It is sort of wrong。

In the first sentence, “think” expresses that the sentence is a statement and indicates a high degree of speaker’s commitment。 While in the second sentence, “sort of” weakens the truth value to some degree, but it can’t affect the truth condition。 The Chinese meanings of the two sentences are “我认为它是错的” and “他有一点错”。 来:自[优E尔L论W文W网www.youerw.com +QQ752018766-

2。2。2 Pragmatic Vagueness

Unlike semantic vagueness, pragmatic vagueness is used by speakers or writers to achieve certain purpose。 The meaning covered by pragmatic is called pragmatic meaning。 In daily life, when you are invited to have a lunch at 12 o’clock。 You may come at 11:50, 12:10 or 12:20 depending on different occasion。 At abroad, you need to come on time。 But in China, you must be expected to come at 5:10。 The required time is precise, but it is vague in different context。 So the precise expression still has a pragmatic meaning。 This expression is still no boundary due to the context。 Thus, it is pragmatic vagueness。

Take the vague expression “approximately” as an example。 “The rabbit is approximately six feet tall”。 The sentence is nonsense because of everyone know that rabbit can’t be so long。 This sentence is exaggerated by the writer。 It is used to express how big the rabbit is and may be used to threaten the children who are afraid of rabbit。 In different contexts, people would have different translations。 Therefore, in this sentence, with the word “approximately”, it becomes more reliable。

There is an another example。 The semantic meaning of “cold” is “not warm”。 But in the sentence “it’s cold here”, it can be translated as several pragmatic meaning in different context。