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Vagueness, Ambiguity, and All the Rest: Linguistic and pragmatic approaches
Edited by Ilaria Fiorentini and Chiara Zanchi
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 347] 2024
► pp. 51–83

Chapter 4
Vagueness and ambiguity are very different (persuasion devices)

| University Roma Tre | Università della Svizzera Italiana
| Università degli Studi di Genova
| University Roma Tre
Without taking a strong theoretical stance on the terminological boundary between ambiguity and vagueness, we suggest that, at least when considered as persuasion devices, they are quite different and almost opposite phenomena. We suggest that vagueness is effectively persuasive in that it can specifically divert epistemic vigilance from questionable or unpleasant contents. Ambiguity, conversely, encodes multiple meanings drawing additional attention to the message. We support such claims through examples from markedly persuasive texts and through the results of a self-paced reading experiment revealing differences between contextually precise vague expressions (VE), contextually non-precise VE, and precise expressions.
Keywords: vagueness, ambiguity, persuasion, epistemic vigilance, implicit meaning, cognitive linguistics, experimental pragmatics
Article outline
  • 1.Vagueness and ambiguity: Different or continuous phenomena?
  • 2.Vagueness and ambiguity as persuasion devices
    • 2.1Persuasive vagueness
    • 2.2Persuasive ambiguity
    • 2.3Two different (almost opposite) persuasive processes
  • 3.Experimental evidence
    • 3.1Previous research and present research hypotheses
    • 3.2Design and procedure
    • 3.3Results and discussion
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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