Vagueness is associated with imprecision.
Vagueness is the property of vague . This term (vague), for its part, can refer to something that is empty, lacking firmness or without precision .
For example: "The experts expressed their bewilderment at the vagueness of the statement released by the municipal government" , "I find it regrettable that a candidate for president expresses himself so vaguely when analyzing the most important issues in the country" , "When having to explain how he had obtained the money, the man spoke vaguely and did not give details .
Notion of vagueness
The notion of vagueness, therefore, is used to qualify statements that do not show support or that are not clear . Suppose a teacher asks a student why he didn't do his homework. The young man, instead of giving a concrete answer, answers vaguely: "I was willing to do the task, but these days are somewhat complicated for me. I got home and looked for the notebook, but the phone rang and it was very hot; Although I wanted to fulfill my obligations, in the end I couldn't . As can be seen, the student does not provide a coherent explanation and only responds with vague phrases.
Vagueness may be considered a serious fault in some contexts . If a public official cannot explain how he managed to increase his assets by 100% in just one year, this vagueness can be taken as an indication of a possible act of corruption. Otherwise, the official in question would be able to clearly explain the origin of his sudden enrichment and refute any accusation or suspicion.
He who speaks vaguely does so without substance.
Differences with ambiguity
Vagueness and ambiguity are two terms that are often used synonymously, but they present clear differences, beyond the fact that both allow the use of imprecise language. When we use an ambiguous expression or word, we want it to express more than one meaning, while vagueness focuses on only one but makes it difficult to decipher . Through ambiguous language, the sender offers a richness that can hide more than one message behind a phrase or even a single word, while vagueness invites the interlocutor to search for a single message.
To understand what was said in the previous paragraph, let's look at the following example: "The truth is that this movie is tremendous." The adjective "tremendous" has several meanings, and only the first two that the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy shows us are practically opposite: "terrible, which should be feared", "which should be respected". Therefore, we can say that the example sentence is ambiguous, since it could either mean that the movie is very bad or that it is a true masterpiece.
If, on the other hand, the sender had said "Ah, yes, what a movie!" , the message does not provide us with clear information, but rather does not immerse us in vagueness: we cannot know whether or not the work is to the sender's liking, and to do so we must investigate the topic . In this case there are no terms that can guide us, but a simple exclamation that is not enough to issue a possible verdict.
In ambiguity it is always possible to resolve the meaning once the context is established, while vagueness usually presents words that never provide a precise meaning. For example, the term "menu" has several meanings , since it can be an epistle or a book in which a restaurant's dishes are listed; If it is used ambiguously, it is enough to find out the setting of the story to understand which of them it refers to. Words like “tall” or “big,” on the other hand, never provide specific data, but are always vague, regardless of the context: tall can be someone who is 1.80 meters tall, but also a person who is 2.50 meters tall.