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se or sentence has two interpretations when the context is not specified, it is ambiguous and this language phenomenon is ambiguity. However, ambiguity is different from polysemy. Polysemy refers to words which have more than one meaning. But polysemous words are sources of ambiguity. Ambiguity is rare in actual texts, because contextual clues generally make clear which meaning is appropriate, but vagueness is possible in many cases because it expresses one meaning which is not clear or distinct.
1.2.3 Vagueness and Generality
Vagueness and generality are two different terms. As for generality, Zhang Qiao argues that “the meaning of an expression is general in the sense that it dose not specify certain details; i.e. generality is a matter of unspecification.” For example, the meaning of “flower” is general because it does not specify whether the flower is daisy or lily, or whether or not the flower is red or white. In our opinion, if generality is equal to unspecification, it would be difficult to draw a demarcation line between generality and fuzziness. For this reason, generality is considered in our terms as follows: an expression is general if it is the superordinate to other relevant expressions, which are considered as its hyponyms.
The Core of Vague Language---Hedge
　　　Hedge, which closely interrelated with the phenomenon of vague language, is an important researching object of linguistics. The designation “hedge” itself was first introduced by G. Lakoff in his article “Hedge: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts” (Lakoff. 1972). Lakoff defines “hedges” as words whose function is to make things fuzzier and less fuzzy.
　　　There are four categories of hedge according to Zedeh:
Words with suffixes such as –ish, -likely, -ly, etc.
Some adjectives and adverbs such as sort of, a little bit, maybe, often, usually, always, quite, very, almost, some, somewhere, recently, somewhat, etc.
Phrases such as as if, so that, as though, so as to, etc. These phrases show the speaker’s uncertainty about what he said.
Sentences such as I think, I guess, I wonder, As far as, I can tell, etc. These sentences can help the speaker to express himself more indirectly and more politely.
Four reasons listed by Crystal and Davy (1975) explain speakers’ selection of hedges: (1) memory loss- the speaker forgets the correct word; (2) the language has no suitable exact word, or the speaker dose not know it; (3) the subject of the conversation is not such that it requires precision, and an approximation or characterization will do, and (4) the choice of a vague item is deliberate to maintain the atmosphere, when precision is not of primary concern. Therefore, hedges cannot be simply evaluated with either the term “good” or “bad”. The matter concerned is that whether they can be used appropriately and how to use them in place so as to achieve the goal of appropriate expression and successful communication. As the core of vague language, hedge widely exists in human’ s communication and constitutes the main part of vague language. The most important thing lies in that its hedging device can function as pragmatic strategies to achieve communicative purpose, which is to be illustrated in the following chapters.
Factors Causing Vague Language
Vagueness of language involves two sides---objective, that is, language syste