Abstract
The danger of being known as someone who is fascinated by vague language is that you run the risk of friends and colleagues using it just to humour you. Thus a University of Edinburgh colleague once ended an email to me, ‘See you whenever it is, if not before,’ and another, also from the university, engaged me in this email exchange:
-
Colleague: So do you know about the charity ceilidh at St Brides Centre Saturday week then?
-
Me: On 4th yeah — are you going?
-
Colleague: I’m certainly thinking about it. I’m inclined to. How’s that for being wishy-washy?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
S. Adolphs, B. Brown, R. Carter, C. Crawford and O. Sahota, ‘Applying Corpus Linguistics in a Health Care Context’, Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1/1 (2004) 9–28.
M. Allaby, Dictionary of Zoology (Oxford University Press, 1999).
B. Bernstein, Class, Codes and Control, Vol. 1 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971).
D. Biber, S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad and E. Finegan, Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (London: Pearson Education, 1999).
D. Brazil, The Communicative Role of Intonation in English (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
P. Brown and S. Levinson, Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use (Cambridge University Press, 1987).
R. Carter, ‘Orders of Reality: CANCODE, Communication, and CULTURE’, ELT Journal, 52/1 (1998) 43–56.
R. Carter, ‘Spoken Grammars, Written Grammars’, unpublished talk given to the National Association for Teaching English and Community Languages to Adults (NATECLA), (Stevenson College Edinburgh, 22 April 2006).
R. Carter and M. McCarthy, Exploring Spoken English (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
R. Carter and M. McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive Guide. Spoken and Written English Grammar and Usage (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
J. Channell, Vague Language (Oxford University Press, 1994).
D. Crystal and D. Davy, Advanced Conversational English (London: Longman, 1975).
J. Cutting, ‘The Function of Inexplicit Language in “CANCODE” Casual Conversations’, unpublished paper in Sociolinguistics Symposium 12, University of London (1998).
J. Cutting, ‘Vague Language and International Students Seminar of the British Association of Applied Linguistics’, in The Grammar of Spoken English and EAP Teaching (University of Sunderland Press, 1999).
J. Cutting, Analysing the Language of Discourse Communities (Oxford: Elsevier Science, 2000).
J. Cutting, ‘Speech Acts of the In-Group’, Journal of Pragmatics: 33/8 (2001) 1207–33.
J. Cutting, ‘The Function of Academic Discourse Community Code in Tutorials’, unpublished paper in 35th BAAL Annual Meeting, University of Wales Cardiff (2002).
S. Eggins and D. Slade, Analysing Casual Conversation (London: Cassell, 1997).
N. Fairclough, Language and Power (Harlow: Longman, 1989).
N. Fairclough, Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research (Oxford: Routledge, 2003).
H. Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967).
E. Goffman, Behaviour in Public Places (New York: Free Press, 1963).
H. P. Grice, ‘Logic and Conversation’. In P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds), Syntax and Semantics: Speech Acts 3 (New York: Academic Press, 1975).
J. Gumperz, Discourse Strategies (Cambridge University Press, 1982).
R.R. Jordan, English for Academic Purposes: A Guide and Resource Book for Teachers (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
G. Lakoff, ‘Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts’, Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 8 (1972) 183–228.
M. McCarthy, Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
M. Overstreet, Whales, Candlelight, and Stuff Like That: General Extenders in English Discourse (Oxford University Press, 1999).
C. Roberts, ‘Language Acquisition or Language Socialisation in and Through Discourse? Towards a Redefinition of the Domain of SLA’, in C. Candlin and N. Mercer, English Language Teaching in its Social Context (London: Routledge, 2003).
D. Schiffrin, Approaches to Discourse (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).
S. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor: AIDS and Its Metaphors (London: Penguin, 1991).
H. Spencer-Oatey, ‘Rapport Management: A Framework for Analysis’, in Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport Through Talk Across Cultures (London: Continuum, 2000).
D. Tannen, Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends (New Jersey: Ablex, 1984).
D. Tannen, Talking Voices (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
L.S. Vygotsky, Mind in Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978).
R. Wodak, Disorders of Discourse (London: Longman, 1996).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2007 Joan Cutting
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cutting, J. (2007). Introduction to Vague Language Explored . In: Cutting, J. (eds) Vague Language Explored. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230627420_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230627420_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-54197-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-62742-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Language & Linguistics CollectionEducation (R0)