Use Of Vague Language Research Articles

Identity and the spoken grammar dilemma

Abstract This article reports on a study that investigated issues involved with the teaching of features of spoken English, sometimes called spoken grammar, including the use of vague language, placeholders, lexico-grammatical units and ellipsis. Materials focussing on four spoken features were prepared and presented over a period of two months to 19 students aged 18 to 20 preparing to enter a private university in Istanbul, Turkey. Of these students, nine were female and 10 male. It was found that although some initial uptake of these features was evident at the time of the post-test, little had been maintained by the time of the delayed post-test three weeks later. During focus group interviews, students attributed this attrition to the fact that spoken grammar norms conflicted with their own sense of identity, making them feel “fake”, “artificial” and “embarrassed”. The dilemma regarding the perceived pedagogical need to teach “natural” English by native speaker norms, versus students’ need to adopt features with which they feel comfortable according to their own sense of identity is discussed. It is suggested that teaching spoken grammar should be seen as offering learners choices which they are free to adopt or not according to their own identities.

Vague words in Law in Order: Special Victims Unit

TV series have been a source of input for English language learners, especially the ones interested in real language use. There are studies that show how close to real life some TV shows are (ORFANO, 2010). For this study a corpus of a TV series - Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU) - was compiled. This corpus is composed of 6 episodes (44.400 words). The analysis considered that every Law and Order episode carries investigation and court scenes. The main point of this investigation is to analyze the use of vague words such as any, anything, anyone, anybody, anyway, and anywhere in the TV show. An analysis of the episodes showed that these words occurred 139 times with a frequency distribution that varied in the investigation and court scenes. The results may reveal that more formal contexts, represented in the TV series by the court scenes, do not favor the use of vague language. In such argumentative contexts speakers tend to be more precise.

Feedback to achieve improved sign-out technique.

To maximize the quality of sign-out documents within the internal medicine residency, a quality improvement intervention was developed and implemented. Written sign-outs were collected from general medicine ward teams and graded using an 11-point checklist; in-person feedback was then given directly to the ward teams. Documentation of many of the 11 elements improved: mental status (22% to 66%, P < .0001), decisionality (40% to 66%, P < .0001), lab/test results (63% to 69%, P < .0001), level of acuity (34% to 50%, P < .0001), anticipatory guidance (69% to 82%, P < .0001), and future plans (35% to 38%, P < .0005). The use of vague language declined (41% to 26%, P < .0001). The mean total scores improved from 7.0 to 8.2 out of a possible 11 (P < .0001). As new house staff rotated onto the services, improvement over time was sustained with 1 feedback session per team, per month. Similar interventions could be made in other programs and other institutions.

The impact of touchy topics on vague language use

Vague language (VL, e.g. kind of), an integral part of language, has been attracting increased attention in linguistic studies. VL is a versatile tool of communication in presenting the world in an imprecise but powerful manner. This study explores an overlooked issue: the relationship between the sensitivity of topics and the use of VL, particularly between topical sensitivity and the form and function of VL items. The corpus consists of semi-controlled spoken interactions between Western Australian tertiary students who were asked to converse on two topics: asylum seekers (touchy) and weekend activities (less touchy). The findings reveal the impact of sensitivity, manifested by different VL frequencies (macro level) and forms (micro level) used in the different topics. More VL, and particular forms of VL (e.g. I think, some, or something), were used in the asylum seeker discourse. As the level of topical sensitivity increases, the level of vagueness in talk-in-interactions also increases: that is, the level of sensitivity, VL frequency, and specific VL items are positively related. Showing how participants use VL in responding to different degrees of sensitivity, this study enriches the scarce literature by providing fresh insights and new resources in this important research area. It is expected that the impact of touchy topics may be applicable to other areas of linguistic studies.

Using inferred probabilities to measure the accuracy of imprecise forecasts

AbstractResearch on forecasting is effectively limited to forecasts that are expressed with clarity; which is to say that the forecasted event must be sufficiently well-defined so that it can be clearly resolved whether or not the event occurred and forecasts certainties are expressed as quantitative probabilities. When forecasts are expressed with clarity, then quantitative measures (scoring rules, calibration, discrimination, etc.) can be used to measure forecast accuracy, which in turn can be used to measure the comparative accuracy of different forecasting methods. Unfortunately most real world forecasts are not expressed clearly. This lack of clarity extends to both the description of the forecast event and to the use of vague language to express forecast certainty. It is thus difficult to assess the accuracy of most real world forecasts, and consequently the accuracy the methods used to generate real world forecasts. This paper addresses this deficiency by presenting an approach to measuring the accuracy of imprecise real world forecasts using the same quantitative metrics routinely used to measure the accuracy of well-defined forecasts. To demonstrate applicability, the inferred probability method is applied to measure the accuracy of forecasts in fourteen documents examining complex political domains.

Don't say ‘amount–!: School science exam tips

Two teachers talk about revision and examination techniques in secondary science education. It is clear to both that students are losing valuable marks for the use of vague language when answering questions. With over 50 years of teaching between them, they use their experience to propose a set of helpful tips for students and teachers, highlighting key problem areas and a need for greater awareness of scientific language and progressive preparation.

The use of vague language in intercultural conversations in Hong Kong

This paper presents the findings of a study of vague language use based on a corpus of naturally-occurring conversations between native and non-native speakers of English in Hong Kong. The specific concern of the paper is to describe the use of vague language by the two sets of speakers. The forms of vague language present in our data are defined and exemplified. Both the native English and the non-native speakers use vague language extensively in our data for a similar range of purposes, for example to achieve informal communication, classify objects, fill a lexical or knowledge gap, and accommodate one another. We also investigated whether communication problems are experienced in these intercultural conversations by speakers using vague language differently. We conclude that in our data at least there is no evidence to suggest that such communication problems arise from differences in vague language use. On the contrary, the use of vague language by both native and non-native speakers facilitates rather than hinders successful communication in intercultural conversations.

Vagueness and Legal Theory

The use of vague language in law has important implications for legal theory. Legal philosophers have occasionally grappled with those implications, but they have not come to grips with the characteristic phenomenon of vagueness: the sorites paradox. I discuss the paradox, and claim that it poses problems for some legal theorists (David Lyons, Hans Kelsen, and, especially, Ronald Dworkin). I propose that a good account of vagueness will have three consequences for legal theory: (i) Theories that deny that vagueness in formulations of the law leads to discretion in adjudication (including Dworkin's) cannot accommodate “higher-order” vagueness, (ii) A legal theory should accept that the law is partly indeterminate when it can be stated in vague language, (iii) However, the traditional formulation of the indeterminacy claim, that a vague statement is “neither true nor false” in a borderline case, is misconceived and should be abandoned.

Come about Five-ish: Vagueness in Language

The article examines differing use of vague terms such as “about”, “or so”, “more than” and “less than” in the discourse of English first-language (L1) users and English second-language (L2) users. It shows that while L1 users show a broadly general interpretation of such vague terms, L2 users vary in their interpretation, both amongst themselves and as opposed to the L1 users. Despite the fact that vague language is both a frequent and widespread phenomenon, it is a language resource that is rarely taught in the L2 classroom; rather it is ‘learnt’ within a particular socio-cultural context. The article argues that more attention should be paid to vague language use in the L2 classroom and ends by suggesting how this could be carried out.