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李晓丽

Abstract:This essay is attempting to form a simple pragmatic framework for rhetorical vagueness. Firstly, some efforts are made to comment on vagueness and define the expression "rhetorical vagueness". Secondly, rhetorical vagueness is integrated with context dependence and several major pragmatic principles.

Key words:rhetorical vagueness context dependence Cooperative Principles Relevance Principles

ⅠA Brief Comment on Vagueness》

In Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionary, the definition of “vague” is: not clearly expressed or perceived; not specific or exact; imprecise. Over a long period of time, people usually advocate precision and evade vagueness in using language. The traditional theories of rhetoric often require the language not to show the slightest amount of vagueness in order to make others be clear about the meaning and intention of the words.

However, when vague is combined with language to form vague language, we have to review it. In fact, vagueness is one of the fundamental features of language. Also, it is a kind of common phenomenon that cant be evaded in common usage.

ⅡVagueness: a study object of rhetoric

Rhetoric is mainly concerned with skillful usage of language, and people often rely on rhetoric to enhance the effect of their speech and writing. Apart from the use of vague expressions, the figurative use of language, such as metaphor, irony etc., also presents itself as vague use of language. Besides, other vagueness strategies are deliberately employed to accentuate the rhetorical effect of speech or writing.

For the convenience of the present study, we must give a definition for rhetorical vagueness at first. Rhetorical vagueness is a linguistic choice for a particular goal in communication.

Ⅲ Analysis of Rhetorical Vagueness from a Pragmatic Perspective

1 .Context dependence and vagueness

People use same vague expressions differently in different contexts. It may be true to call a house “large” if you are living in it by yourself, and false if you are living with six children.

A. Standard of precision

The truth-value of a vague statement depends on the standard of precision in a particular context. A sentence such as "France is hexagonal", which is acceptable under low standard of precision, will be rejected if standards are raised. The standard of precision also applies to vague expressions. Whether a vague expression can apply or fails to apply to the same person or object varies under different standard of precision.

B. Comparison class

The status of one object could be showed by comparison with other objects available in the same context. In some contexts the statement "Fred is tall" may be perfectly acceptable, but in others, Fred, being a volleyball player, is compared with other team members in terms of height, it might be more acceptable to say "Fred is not really tall".

C. Expectations and purposes

The audience's expectation is determined in part by past applications of a vague term in similar context. Very often, the participants in a conversation may have possible discriminations in mind and apply that to the actual objects available in context.

The application of vague words depends on the purposes of the speaker: it may be true to call a 1,500 Yuan salary "high" if you are talking about working only two days a week, and false if you are talking about working 10 hours a day seven days a week under risky conditions.

2.Cooperative Principle and rhetorical vagueness

CP assumes that people are cooperative, so people assume that others are cooperative too. When a speaker fails to observe a maxim, an implicature is generated.

3.Relevance Principle and rhetorical vagueness

Relevance theory is a new approach to pragmatics, but it also sheds light on rhetorical vagueness. It is especially useful in treating some figurative use of language and other forms of rhetorical vagueness as a case of loose use of language. In Grice's account of metaphor, irony and other figures, a maxim is deliberately violated in order to convey a figurative implicature.

A.Loose talk, literal talk and vagueness

In conversation analysis, communication is believed to involve literal talk, loose talk and figurative talk. In Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory, figurative use of language is also treated as loose use of language. In contrast to literal use of language, non-literal use-loose talk and figurative talk-involve vagueness since the meaning of these utterance should not be taken literally. Look at the following examples:

B. Relevance and metaphor

In Grice's implicature theory, metaphor involves implicature resulting from flouting the maxim of quality. However, we have evidence to say that this is not always true.

Grice's contribution of his maxim-violation theory of metaphor lies in the fact that it offers us a criterion for the recognition of metaphor. But the criterion is only partial because all the other kinds of implicature share the same property of being generated by an overt flouting of a conversational maxim, and how we get from recognition to interpretation remains entirely unclear.

C.Relevance and irony

Since the real meaning of an irony is not explicitly expressed, efforts have to be made to arrive at the implied meaning that is sometimes vague. Departing from the traditional approach which treats irony as a figure of speech-saying the opposite of what one means, many scholars have attempted to explore irony from a pragmatic perspective.

Grice lists irony, besides metaphor, as an example of implicature and shows how one can account for irony as a case of flouting CP, by violating the maxim of quality.

Compared with the traditional semantic view of irony, Grice's view is basically pragmatic: The appropriate interpretation of an ironical utterance is assumed to consist only of conversational implicature.

Bibliography:

[1]陈原.社会语言学[M].上海:学林出版社,1983.

[2]Burns, L.C. Vagueness: An Introduction into National Languages and the Sorites Paradox[M]. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.

[3]Channell, J. Vague Language[M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press,1994.