A Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfilment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of Master Of Arts In Linguistics

The paper presented here addresses two important components: semantic analysis and pragmatic analysis of vagueness in language. A comprehensive survey of literature from various perspectives of vagueness research verifies that the ability to use strategies for being vague constitutes an important aspect of the communicative competence. Vague language therefore merits specific attention in the description of English, as well as in the teaching programs of learners of English and their teachers. This study shows how English provides its speakers with a great variety of ways of being vague, by the usage of vague words as well as the usage of sentence structure. Principles of pragmatics is applied to the analysis of vague expressions, describing both the linguistic forms and the pragmatic consequences of their use. The intention of this paper is an endeavor to investigate the value of sentence vagueness analyzing and of vague language. The analysis reveals that vagueness analyses on sentence makes full exploitation of the output mechanism of a learner, which is essential for laying down a solid foundation for further language learning.