Book Review: Vague Language Explored

Vague Language Explored Joan Cutting, ed. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Pp. xiii+251. ISBN-10: 1–4039-8817- X (hbk): £50. ISBN-13: 978–1-4039–8817-1 (pbk). Vague Language Explored, edited by Joan Cutting, is a collection of 12 papers, addressing Vague Language (VL) from various methodological approaches and across different genres. As Joan Cutting states in her Introduction, if VL has already been discussed in many forms and publications, Vague Language Explored turns out to be the first attempt at ‘bring[ing] together the various descriptions under one title’ without claiming to ‘reach a consensus’ on the issue of VL (p. 6). Although the theoretical perspectives are diverse, the articles are not meant to be just a miscellaneous ensemble of different voices on the issue, but all share the common goal of focusing on ‘the function of VL in context’ (p. 9). This socio-pragmatic concern is reflected in the book outline, which after a general ‘Introduction’ (Chapter 1), includes a section dedicated to ‘Vagueness and Genre’ (Chapters 2–6), then moves on to question the ‘Psychology of Vagueness’ (Chapters 7 and 8) and, finally, to address ‘Cross-Cultural Vagueness’ (Chapters 9–11).