Vague Language, Founding Team Human Capital, and Resource Acquisition

Pragmatic communication difficulties encompass many distinct behaviours, including the use of vague and/or insufficient language, a common characteristic following traumatic brain injury (TBI) that negatively impacts psychosocial outcomes. Existing assessments evaluate pragmatic communication broadly, often with only one or two items capturing each behaviour, thus limiting sensitivity and precision to variations within each behaviour. Given that greater nuance is needed to detect subtle pragmatic communication differences and investigate underlying cognitive mechanisms, a more refined measure is critical to improve psychosocial outcomes. The Vague scale was developed to address those needs. To provide preliminary evidence supporting the novel Vague language use (Vague) scale's reliability, validity and clinical utility. The Vague scale rates each discourse sample utterance for vague language use on a 3-point scale; the measure's Vague score represents the mean of utterance-level ratings. Using the Vague scale, two raters naïve to diagnosis evaluated Cinderella narratives of 46 adults with severe TBI and 46 controls with no brain injury, providing reliability, construct validity and classification accuracy evidence. Vague scores were also compared to other clinical measures to gather criterion-related validity evidence. Interrater agreement across all transcripts was moderate. Construct validity was supported by expected group differences and criterion validation, including significant relationships with increased violations of Grice's maxim of quantity and measures of lexical variation; significant relationships with psychosocial outcomes, supporting clinical utility; and nonsignificant relationships with measures of syntax and overall pragmatic communication. Classification accuracy expectedly did not support using Vague scores in isolation for diagnosis, due to unacceptable sensitivity (0.696). Evidence supported the Vague scores' psychometric properties. Thus, the Vague scale shows promise as a measure of one distinct pragmatic communication behaviour: vague language use. Future research should apply the Vague scale to determine its sensitivity in individuals with subtle social communication challenges (e.g., mild TBI), explore its utility with more naturalistic discourse samples as part of a pragmatic communication battery, longitudinally examine changes in Vague scores, and investigate cognitive mechanisms underlying this specific pragmatic communication behaviour. What is already known on this subject Use of vague language is common following traumatic brain injury (TBI) and may contribute to negative psychosocial outcomes related to employment and relationships. However, existing measures of vague language lack sensitivity and precision, limiting their utility for identifying subtle performance variations or determining the cognitive mechanisms underlying this specific pragmatic communication behaviour. What this study adds to existing knowledge The current study gathered promising reliability, validity and clinical utility evidence to support using the novel Vague language use (Vague) scale, which was developed to address these limitations. Based on complex (Cinderella) stories of adults with and without TBI, Vague scores demonstrated moderate interrater agreement and promising construct validity based on expected group differences and criterion validation, including moderate associations with related constructs and weak associations with unrelated constructs. Because pragmatic communication profiles post-TBI can vary, classification accuracy expectedly indicated that Vague scores should not be used alone to identify communication differences post-TBI. What are the clinical implications of this work? Vague scores show promise for documenting clients' use of vague language and planning intervention to address associated discourse-level challenges. Future research should investigate applying the Vague scale to naturalistic discourse samples (1) as part of a battery that sensitively and precisely identifies pragmatic communication differences and (2) as a tool for investigating cognitive mechanisms underlying vague language use, with the goal of improving interventions that support pragmatic communication and enhance psychosocial outcomes.

Vague language has been explored in a variety of languages, including Russian. There is also a growing body of research into vague language used by L2 speakers, predominantly of English. Vague language of Russian L2 learners has not yet been addressed.
 The present study focuses on the use of vague language by Italian-speaking learners of Russian based on the data of 2 learner corpora. It deals with main categories of vague language: vague nouns (вещь ‘thing’), approximators (около десяти ‘around ten’), and general extenders (и так далее ‘and so on’). The aim of the study is to identify how extensively and in what contexts Italian learners of Russian resort to vague language and to compare the findings to the use of vague language by native speakers and learners with a different linguistic background (English L1).

Vague language (VL, e.g. kind of), an integral part of language, has been attracting increased attention in linguistic studies. VL is a versatile tool of communication in presenting the world in an imprecise but powerful manner. This study explores an overlooked issue: the relationship between the sensitivity of topics and the use of VL, particularly between topical sensitivity and the form and function of VL items. The corpus consists of semi-controlled spoken interactions between Western Australian tertiary students who were asked to converse on two topics: asylum seekers (touchy) and weekend activities (less touchy). The findings reveal the impact of sensitivity, manifested by different VL frequencies (macro level) and forms (micro level) used in the different topics. More VL, and particular forms of VL (e.g. I think, some, or something), were used in the asylum seeker discourse. As the level of topical sensitivity increases, the level of vagueness in talk-in-interactions also increases: that is, the level of sensitivity, VL frequency, and specific VL items are positively related. Showing how participants use VL in responding to different degrees of sensitivity, this study enriches the scarce literature by providing fresh insights and new resources in this important research area. It is expected that the impact of touchy topics may be applicable to other areas of linguistic studies.

Two teachers talk about revision and examination techniques in secondary science education. It is clear to both that students are losing valuable marks for the use of vague language when answering questions. With over 50 years of teaching between them, they use their experience to propose a set of helpful tips for students and teachers, highlighting key problem areas and a need for greater awareness of scientific language and progressive preparation.

This chapter presents an overview of the evolution of transnational labour governance in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, emphasising the crowded and contested nature of the regulatory landscape. It then traces the emergence of the concept of human rights due diligence (HRDD), from the failed UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises through to the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in 2011. It shows that broad-based support for the UNGPs in 2011 did not indicate the resolution of key issues of contention in transnational labour governance. The UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, secured support for the concept by using two devices long familiar to international legal scholars: reframing and strategic ambiguity. Business support for HRDD was generated by reframing human rights in a way that was familiar to, and resonated with, business and by avoiding the imposition of substantive constraints on managerial prerogative. At the same time, however, Ruggie was able to generate support for the concept in the international labour and human rights movements by the use of vague language. Because of this ambiguity, in the eyes of many labour and human rights activists, the concept carried the potential for the further opening up of corporate practices to contestation and political leverage. It also offered a promising channel through which greater accountability of companies for labour rights abuses could be secured in law.

This paper explores how a Humean may respond to issues of vagueness in philosophy of language—and in extension—ontology. It begins with an examination of the sorites paradox and two common responses: epistemicism, and eliminativism. I then turn to David Hume’s conception of abstract ideas as a way to determine how vague terms refer and then compare this view to both epistemicism and eliminativism. The paper ends with a defense of the Humean view as a synthesis of the two, which ultimately questions the formulation of the sorites paradox as a proper use of language.

The acts of human beings are usually guided by our purposes. To meet our purposes, we deliberately take different strategies. It is the same case in verbal communication. In communication, vague language has been widely applied as a discursive strategy to achieve speaker’s communicative purpose. We usually adopt different vague languages in order to achieve different communicative purposes. We call this discursive strategy pragmatic vagueness, which is different from the vagueness of language. The latter is an intrinsic feature of some languages themselves while the former is used as a strategy in communication and heavily influenced by our communicative purposes, therefore, to some degree, indicating the language using ability of the speaker. Thus it is necessary to explore the communicative functions of pragmatic vagueness for achieving communicative purpose. By examining the examples mainly in daily usage, this thesis intends to explore what communicative functions pragmatic vagueness has, how its functions are achieved and why people tend to do it in this way, and to analyze how speakers’ goals are accomplished by making use of vague languages.

The tobacco harm reduction literature is replete with vague language, far-reaching claims, and unwarranted certainty. The American Thoracic Society has increasingly recognized the need for a framework for reliably making such claims. Evidence-based standards improving the scientific value and transparency of harm reduction claims are expected to improve their trustworthiness, clarity, and consistency. Experts from relevant American Thoracic Society committees identified key topic areas for discussion. Literature search strategy included English language articles across Medline, Google Scholar, and the Cochrane Collaborative databases, with expanded search terms including tobacco, addiction, smoking, cigarettes, nicotine, and harm reduction. Workgroup members synthesized their evidentiary summaries into a list of candidate topics suitable for inclusion in the final report. Breakout groups developed detailed content maps of each topic area, including points to be considered for suggested recommendations. Successive draft recommendations were modified using an iterative consensus process until unanimous approval was achieved. Patient representatives ensured the document's relevance to the lay public. Fifteen recommendations were identified, organized into four framework elements dealing with: estimating harm reduction among individuals, making claims on the basis of population impact, appropriately careful use of language, and ethical considerations in harm reduction. This statement clarifies important principles guiding valid direct and inferential harm reduction claims. Ideals for effective communication with the lay public and attention to unique ethical concerns are also delineated. The authors call for formal systems of grading harm reduction evidence and regulatory assurances of longitudinal surveillance systems to document the impact of harm reduction policies.

Language Play and Language Acquisition

This paper explores, from a systemic functional linguistics perspective, the relation among the concepts of 'context', 'register' (Halliday & Hasan, 1989;Halliday, 2004) 'genre' (Martin, 1992(Martin, , 1997(Martin, , 2000) ) and language education.The reason for exploring these concepts is their connection with two notions that have a direct bearing on language teaching/learning: the appropriateness of linguistic forms to achieve specific communicative purposes (linked to the paradigm of analysing language in use) and the relation between text and context.To illustrate and apply the SFL theoretical and analytical resources presented, an exemplar of a reader's letter published by Newsweek magazine is analysed.It is suggested that a functional perspective on language teaching/learning helps students build systematic links between contextual and linguistic parameters when using language, a goal which is facilitated by SFL's view of language as "sets of related choices or options, each of which is called a system" (Painter, 2001: 176).In other words, the notions of register and genre can be used to make students aware of the sociocultural features of the text-type that is being taught and of which linguistic choices are more likely to be made in its textualization, as well as to help teachers "to identify and focus on whatever aspect of language in use the learner needs most help with" (Painter, 2001: 178).

This paper discusses a consistency in patterns of language use across domain-specific collections of text. We present a method for the automatic identification of domain-specific keywords – specialist terms – based on comparing language use in scientific domain-specific text collections with language use in texts intended for a more general audience. The method supports automatic production of collocational networks, and of networks of concepts – thesauri, or so-called ontologies. The method involves a novel combination of existing metrics from work in computational linguistics, which can enable extraction, or learning, of these kinds of networks. Creation of ontologies or thesauri is informed by international (ISO) standards in terminology science, and the resulting resource can be used to support a variety of work, including data-mining applications.

Frequency effects in language acquisition, language use, and diachronic change

The starting point for this article is that although new communication technologies have become an integral part of much educational provision, the nature of virtual learning environments (VLEs) remains underresearched, particularly in terms of the language skills required of participants. Existing research paradigms from linguistics, especially those from formalist traditions, offer inadequate and simplistic accounts of new communication contexts. Drawing on the field of Mediated Discourse Theory and of Scollon’s central concept of discourse as a ‘nexus of practice’ (Scollon, 1998, 2011), the article brings together interactionist approaches with insights from stylistics in order to analyse a specific aspect of synchronous written language use within a VLE, that of ‘response cries’ (Goffman, 1981). The analysis acts as an exemplar, illustrating the complexity of new communication systems and the associated skills required by interlocutors to negotiate meaning in unfamiliar spaces. Response cries, as examples of utterances that are neither speech nor writing in any formal sense, show how ‘new representational technologies are simultaneously producing new forms of representation and mediational means’ (Scollon, 2001: 170). A number of pedagogic implications arise from this study, including the need to build a more sophisticated understanding of the nature of VLEs in order to assess participant performance accurately. For example, the study shows that in order to represent aspects of expressive language, which have traditionally been associated with speech, participants need a high level of literacy skill and metalinguistic awareness. In addition, participants who are part of international online study communities need to be able to negotiate new norms of usage as English is elaborated as a virtual lingua franca.

Sociolinguistics pays attention to the social aspects of human language. Sociolinguistics discusses the relationship between language and society. In the following part of this paper, it will be focussed on the use of (1) language (2) dialects, (3) language variation, (4) social stratification, (5) register. This discussion talks about the five types of those topics because they are really problematic sort of things, which relate the social life of the local people. In relation to this, the most important point is to distinguish the terms from one to another. There are three main points to discuss: language, dialects and register. Languages which are used as medium of communication have many varieties. These language variations are created by the existence of social stratification in the community. Social stratification will determine the form of language use by the speakers who involve in the interaction. The language variation can be in the form of dialects and register. Dialect of a language correlates with such social factors such as socio-economic status, age, occupation of the speakers. Dialect is a variety of a particular language which is used by a particular group of speakers that is signaled by systematic markers such as syntactical, phonological, grammatical markers. Dialects which are normally found in the speech community may be in the forms of regional dialect and social dialect. Register is the variation of language according to the use. It means that where the language is used as a means of communication for certain purposes. It depends entirely on the domain of language used. It is also a function of all the other components of speech situation. A formal setting may condition a formal register, characterized by particular lexical items. The informal setting may be reflected in casual register that indicates less formal vocabulary, more non-standard features, greater instances of stigmatized variables, and so on.Keywords: language, dialect, register and sociolinguistic.

An individuals’ autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other intellectual disabilities often have significant challenges with the acquisition and generalized use of many aspects of language, social interaction, and play skills. Children without appropriate play language are at risk for not developing the friendships and social relationships that undergird the development of more complex play and social behavior. Overcoming this barrier requires a set of effective instructional practices, and matrix training procedures is one instructional format that has an extensive and effective literature in this domain. For individuals with language and social skill challenges, matrix training-based interventions provide treatment procedures focusing on the production and generalized use of language as an essential component of the intervention. Matrix training provides a structure for teaching and demonstrating specific combinations of responses (vocal and/or motor) which increases the probability that untrained combinations of those responses will emerge in the absence of explicit training. Matrix training refers to a set of procedures or instructional arrangements designed to support what is often referred to as generative learning or recombinative generalization. For those working with children with ASD and who are tasked with creating and implementing efficient instruction this is critical to effective and timely treatment to address this core challenge. Knowledge and effective use of Matrix training procedures should be considered an essential area of competency.