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Asia-Pacific Forum
on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 10, Issue 1, Article 3
(June, 2009) |
Depth of intention, precision, vagueness, specificity, and generality
Being able to use scientific terms is not necessarily the same as possessing an understanding of scientific content. However, terms may be a vehicle for abstract thought, and to acquire knowledge and skill in how to use a scientific language is certainly part of learning science.
Naess (1966) claims that there is often a difference in what he refers to as depth of intention in the statements made by an expert compared with the ‘same’ statements made by a novice.
The depth of intention equals the number of cognitive distinctions that a speaker or hearer is aware of and prepared to take into consideration in a particular situation in connection with the use of a particular expression or formulation (Hirsch, 1997 based on Naess 1966).
Although they may use the same terms, the underlying meaning is much deeper and richer in the language of the expert than in the case of the novice. The best way to determine depth of intention is, according to Naess, to let the interlocutors pose precise questions to each other in order to clarify what was intended by the use of the key terms. This discrepancy in depth of intention between the teachers and students can often be attributed to a lack of mutual common ground (Clark, 1996). Depth of intention in connection with a scientific term is grounded in a web of beliefs and wealth of practical experience shared by teachers and expert practitioners to which, students do not yet have access. The teachers’ use of a term indexes this communal web of belief and wealth of practical experience whereas the students’ use of the term indexes a situationally constrained, particular, and perhaps idiosyncratic understanding of the phenomenon described by the term.
In the analysis of meaning of terms it is necessary to make the distinction between vagueness versus preciseness on the one hand and generality versus specificity on the other (Naess, 1966). If we take the word ‘bond’, for instance, that occurs in both everyday language and the language of science we can make a four-way distinction between vagueness and preciseness, and generality and specificity as depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Model showing how the term ‘bond’ can be used with varying degrees of preciseness and specificity.
In the figure, the everyday word ‘bond’ can be used in a vague and general sense to cover a wide range of references, where some of these are more or less metaphorical. The expression ‘interpersonal bond’ refers to a specific type of phenomena covered by the term ‘bond’ but not necessarily adding any precision to the term ‘bond’ itself. The notion of bond is still as vague as it was in the general case. In order to move in the direction of precision, what is needed is a regulation or regimentation of the term by a definition of the concept ‘bond’. One case of this is the use of the term in connection with atoms and molecules, where the term ‘chemical bond’ refers to a certain class of phenomena in nature, covering different types of electrochemical forces between particles, such as ionic bonds, covalent bonds, and Van Der Vaal bonds. In this case, the concept of ‘bond’ has been explicitly defined. Using the precise expression ‘covalent bond’ we can refer to a specific type of chemical bond.
It is important, if not absolutely necessary, that communicators know to which area of the figure the term ‘bond’ belongs in order not to misunderstand or mislead each other. Confusing the vague and general sense of ‘bond’ with the precise and general can result in the creation of analogies that are misleading and irrelevant in a scientific context. The scientific term ‘bond’ has its roots in the everyday word ‘bond’, of course, but should not be identified with it. In the communicative practice of science, the scientific term has taken on a new much more precise and general meaning through the effort of generations of scientists striving to achieve a restriction of the associations and analogies that should be connected with the term in order to secure mutual understanding or at least rule out cases of serious misunderstanding.
The notions of precision, vagueness, specificity, and generality that we will be using in our discussion are defined as follows.
Precision, vagueness, specificity, and generality
Where A and B are expressions, either language (e.g. words, phrases, clauses, sentences) or gestures (e.g. pointing, illustrating, directly manipulating a real or virtual object)
B is more precise than A if and only if B is more clearly decidable in its application and non-application to any given entity or phenomenon within a domain than is A.
B is more vague than A if and only if B is less clearly decidable in its application and non-application to any given entity or phenomenon within a domain than is A.
B is more specific than A if and only if B denotes (refers to, illustrates) a class of entities or phenomena that are included in the class of entities or phenomena denoted by A.
B is more general than A if and only if A denotes (refers to, illustrates) a class of entities or phenomena that are included in the class of entities or phenomena denoted by B.
(Hirsch, 1989, 1996)
Terms belonging to everyday natural language tend to be vague and more or less general or specific in their range of meaning. The same term occurring in a scientific context is used in a more precise sense. The preciseness of a term relates to how well-defined the term is in relation to other terms that could be used to refer to a group of phenomena. The definition delimits the range of interpretations and applications of the term. Ideally, a precise meaning of a term should rule out borderline cases, in which it is not clear whether a certain phenomenon can be referred to or not using the term. How general the range of meaning is for a certain term relates to the range of phenomena in question that can be referred to using the term. If the term can be used to refer to all the phenomena, then the term is totally general. Usually, however, there are a number of less general terms (more specific terms) that cover various sub-areas of the range of phenomena in question. This usually results in a hierarchy or taxonomy of specific subtypes ordered under more general headings. A vague and specific deictic expression, like ‘here’ where it is often unclear exactly how the area referred to is to be delimited, is less general than ‘somewhere’ although both ‘here’ and ‘somewhere’ can only be understood with a proper knowledge of the particulars of the context of utterance. A precise and general term, like ‘DNA’, can, however, be interpreted by those knowledgeable in life science as referring to the same class of objects without any knowledge of the particular details of the context of utterance.
Precision, vagueness, specificity, and generality should, however, not be viewed as permanent properties of expressions but rather as relations that hold between expressions in specific contexts of use. An expression that is specific in relation to one term in a particular context may be seen as more general than another term in another context. An expression that is more precise than another term in one context may be vaguer than another term in some other context. Precision, vagueness, specificity, and generality should be viewed more as tendencies (vectors) in a multidimensional semantic space than as stable properties inherent to the semantics of individual expressions or terms.
