Cutting Joan (ed.) Vague Language Explored

Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. — 266 p. — ISBN13: 978-1-4039-8817-1; ISBN10: 1-4039-8817-X; ISBN: 1-4039-8817-X (cloth).The ability to use vague language ("bags of time", "doing stuff", "sort of thing", "and all that") is an aspect of communicative competence of considerable social importance. This volume explores the function of vague language in context. It spans genre analysis, critical discourse analysis, psycholinguistics and cross-cultural sociolinguistics, in a variety of world cultures. It suggests applications in TOEFL, asking questions such as "What should learners be taught to understand and use, and why?" and suggesting directions for future research.Introduction to Vague Language ExploredVagueness and Genre
'This We Have Done': The Vagueness of Poetry and Public Relations
'About Twelve Thousand or So': Vagueness in North American and UK Offices
Caught Between Professional Requirements and Interpersonal Needs: Vague Language in Healthcare Contexts
'Well Maybe Not Exactly, but It's Around Fifty Basically?': Vague Language in Mathematics Classrooms
'I Think He Was Kind of Shouting or Something': Uses and Abuses of Vagueness in the British CourtroomPsychology of Vagueness
Vague Language as a Means of Self-Protective Avoidance: Tension Management in Conference Talks
'Looking Out for Love and All the Rest of It': Vague Category Markers as Shared Social SpaceCross-Cultural Vagueness
The Use of Vague Language Across Spoken Genres in an Intercultural Hong Kong Corpus
{ / [ Oh ] Not a л Lot }: Discourse Intonation and Vague Language
'Und Tralala': Vagueness and General Extenders in German and New Zealand English'Doing More Stuff - Where's It Going?': Exploring Vague Language Further