A: How old is that women?
B: She is about 29-year-old。
The sentence “She is about 29 years old” is a vague expression。 This sentence indicates some hidden information。 Maybe the speaker doesn’t know the exact age of the woman。 Maybe he cannot tell his partner the exact age。 Lady’s age is considered to be her privacy。 Women are very sensitive about their age, especially 30 years old。 With the consideration of personal privacy, the speaker cannot tell his partner the exact age。
In addition, “old” is a very common and typical word that possesses the characteristic of vagueness。 In the last sentence, the vagueness of the word isn’t clear, but in other contexts, the meaning of “old” is vague。 When someone said: “I have an old friend”。 There exists vagueness。 “Old” can mean “elder” in this sentence。 Therefore, the meaning of the sentence is “I have an elderly friend (我有一个年纪大的朋友)”。 However, “Old” also can mean “familiar, known for a long time”, so the sentence means “I have a friend who has been known to me for a long time（我有一个认识了很久的朋友）”。
Moreover, In English, there are numerous similar phenomena including words, phrases and sentences。 The general phenomenon is the words indicating different meanings。 The word of “cousin” is vague because it sometimes refers to many persons and it has difference in gender and age, such as “表姐妹，堂兄弟，表兄弟，堂姐妹”。
After a brief introduction to the definition of vague language, the author will introduce some classifications of vague language。
2。2 The Classification of Vague Language
Generally speaking, According to different linguistic approaches, vague language is mainly subpided into several categories, such as semantic vagueness, pragmatic vagueness and syntactic vagueness。
2。2。1 Semantic Vagueness
Semantic is linked to the meaning。 It focuses on words, phrases, signs and symbols。 Semantic vagueness is a basic attribute of languages。 It means vagueness in the word’s level。 Words are the constituent of language, thus, semantic vagueness is the foundation of vague language。 It can be subpided into four types: referential vagueness, indeterminacy of meaning, lack of specification and vague modifier。
a。 Referential vagueness
The main feature of referential vagueness is that the meaning of words is clear, but it is hard to decide whether the word can be applied to certain objects or not。 To put it simply, those words are lack of clear-cut boundary。 For example, there are two similar words, “city” and “town”。 In Wikipedia, the definition of the word “city” is a large and permanent human settlement。 The definition of the word “town” is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city。 Although there are clear definition about the two words, in our real life, it is hard to say how large a city is and how small a town is。 Thus, the two words are vague。 In Chinese, the two words is called “城市” and “城镇”。 But there still haven’t clear boundary between city and town。 Likewise, color and time expression are also vague。文献综述
b。 Indeterminacy of meaning
Indeterminacy of meaning refers to the meaning of an item that is indeterminate and uncertain。 Word’s meaning isn’t rigid and stereotypical。 For instance, John’s book may have many different understandings in different contexts。 It may be used to describe the book wrote by John or the book that John owns and so on。 In E-C translation, it is hard to make the meaning clear unless this phrase is used under a certain context。
c。 Lack of specification 英汉翻译中的模糊语现象浅析(3):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_98703.html