文档介绍：Rhetorical Functions of Accuracy and Vagueness
Vagueness, clearly, is a matter of degree, depending upon the extent of the possible differences between different systems represented by the same representation. Accuracy, on the contrary, is an ideal limit. Bertrand Russell, Vagueness, .edu/~crshalizi/Russell/vagueness/, 2007
Generally speaking, vagueness is a language attribute, so we should bear it in mind that accuracy as well as vagueness is parative definition. However, as two important ways of expression, they both possess rhetorical functions.
First of all, accuracy enables a speaker or writer to express ideas exactly and to the point while vagueness allows him or her to carry on munication smoothly.
Speech and writing are always man’s important methods munication, which requires people to convey information and ideas in the exact degree. In other words, accuracy ensures exact expression municative function. Hereafter is an example about the British General Churchill, who highly stressed accuracy. During the WWII, an officer working in Department of Chief of General Staff of the British Army once reported that his troop had been fighting with the Germans at a small village in Italy. Back came Churchill’s copy that “We do not fight with Germans. We fight either for or against them.” In this example, the officer had expected to convey the information of fightin