To what extent is it possible to overcome...

To what extent is it possible to overcome ambiguity and vagueness in language? In what contexts might amibiguity either impede knowledge or contribute to its acquisition? does the balance between precision and ambiguity alter from one area of knowledge to another.

In areas such as natural science, ambiguity is rare because the details are what are needed to determine that area of knowledge

Imagine a world where every speaks exactly what they think.
1) It would take a long time to describe everything.
2) Everyone would be dead honest.

Even though ambiguity can lead to misunderstanding and distortion of a message, it can allow us to "fuzz" the lines of truth and therefore seem more polite. When in an academic setting, precision is more important than between friends.

The very nature of language as existing only between humans means that even the details in natural sciences are still vague as they assume everyone is taking those details to be the same and that the details even apply to the same situation.

Quite frankly we can't. Like others have said ambiguity is a vital part of language. Language has been developing since the only sounds we made were to communicate with other hunters and to locate our children. If being precise and defining every single aspect of an object or scenario was needed, we would have started talking like that a long time ago. And short of descriptive creative writing we generally didn't. Details aren't needed to get the message across so why would need to use them?

Ex. In Northern Ireland people don't even finish sentences. Once they can tell you know what they're talking about, they drop the idea and move onto the next one. It takes a bit of getting used to if you are not used to communicating in that fashion, but it is quite effective for the native speakers. Then again having the ends of sentences left off is least of your problems if you are trying to understand them...

Ambiguity plays a vital role and is only used when it is needed. To illustrate, depending on the subject such as Natural science mentioned by madi - presence of ambiguity is rare as it is important to be clear to gain good sense of that knowledge.
Social, or politics on the other hand - is a total different subject where ambiguity plays vital role for sake of politicians....
As you can see, ambiguity is used only when it is necessary. Even in our daily lives, we use ambiguity for sake of communication, which don't necessary have to so detailed all the time. For instance, if your parents asked you about your at school, Im sure you won't start going off explaining every single details about it.

Ambiguity in our language favors us in a lot of ways, it allows people to speak their idea right without making a mistake for the imcomplete imformation. If we have to avoid ambiguty, some ideas may not be presented because there are no absolute answer for certain questions. Ambiquity helps us to focus more on the main point that is presenting. Also, ambiguity make people feel better when they receive criticism, at the same time, it ecourage the people who want to speak out their idea but don't have the courage to say it straight.

Frankly, I assume that it's as simple as the human brain only has so much short term memory, and you don't want to waste it all with useless garbage.
Also, the average lifespan is only so long, and it would not be well used if half of it was spent idly listening to every boring detail that would vomit from someone's lips the moment you tried to talk to them.

Responding to Louise's idea that it would 'take a long time to describe anything' I see where this point is coming from as each detail would have to be described to make something ' unambiguous' however I also feel like description itself IS vagueness, an ambiguity of language, as it's purpose is not to garner a straight forward understanding. Many adjectives/adverbs are used in mitigation could you ' kindly' for example. However if there was no vagueness or ambiguity description in the formats we use TODAY may become redundant. However, the level of description may be heightened in other areas which might keep its over all use pretty constant.

Ethics – we use our emotions and those are very personal feelings, therefore ethics are particular for each person
This leads me to think that ethics is a ambiguous area of knowledge.
Natural sciences – you need to be more particular in order to relate to the individual
Human sciences – psychology, sociology: classes socioeconomic
History – is more general as it is concrete facts that leave little for interpretation, and you cannot change what has happening in previous times
I would like to say that history isn't that ambiguous but as i started to type that i realized that history can be very biased in the way it is told or relayed to other people, so certain aspects of the stories can be left out to, adding to the ambiguity of the whole situation.
Arts – is very subjective and is all about your interpretation on the piece, so art is quite particular to the individual
Math – is logic and reason, hard evidence and facts
I don't think math is ambiguous as there is always a right and a wrong answer - in my opinion math is the least ambiguous area of knowledge.

you cannot blame the ambiguity of the concept and practice of language. ambiguity is created by our limits in creation and understanding of language. the concept of language is ideal and perfect. it is the creators and users which have made limits to language.
heres an analogy.
A computer is never wrong, it is always perfect. it is the manufacturers, programmers, and users who have failed to optimize the performance of a computer. in other words, the computer is perfect in any case. it never disobeys programming and always executes what it programmed to do. the computer in practice, is only as perfect as the programmers and users.
(this of course excludes the breakdown of hardware.)
(also don't say that computers get viruses and that is a downfall and such because computers alone without a programmer do not create such things)

we blame the language for ambiguity, but it is our lack of understanding and knowledge that limit us in our speech. we say that we always find feelings we cannot explain, but do you know all the words in the dictionary? do you understand how to combine words in harmony?

in class there was an example of a Japanese woman who answered questions differently in different languages, but dont you think that is because she lacks the complete understanding of the English language and not because different languages make you think differently.

i both have spoken English and Japanese and find it easier to express emotions in English, but that is because i lack the complete knowledge of Japanese. people who speak 2 languages are not bipolar because thoughts are not generated by language. it is only interpreted and presented by language.

I don't think we can really oversome ambiguity in our language. To fully avoid ambiguity means either people being absolute or not speak at all. It is contradictory that on one hand we try to accept others ideas and try to avoid being absolute, but on the other hand we try to be straight and hundred percent sure on what we are saying. I assume that we have to choose only one of them, but not both at the same time. The situation we are in always decide which one we choose. When dealing with science or facing an emergency, to speak steight is always what we choose. But when we try to suggest change or when we speak to people in higher position, we rather choose to speak ambiguity. However, to speak ambiguity doesn't mean to be unclear. We can use ambiguity language while we are clear on our point.

Like Louise already said, even though ambiguity does lead to misunerstanding of a message, it makes people sound politer than they actually are. It is important to know when to use amiguity but also when not to use it. Although, to be precise in a class is crutial for many reasons including good marks.

There have been a lot of arguments that are pro ambiguity, but people seem to be missing the negative aspects. Ambiguity means that there is tremendous potential not just for the softening or ameliorating of a message, but for the complete and total loss of an idea underneath the guise of moderating language. For example, the pilots that we read about toning down their language and crashed because they ran out of fuel. I assume that their message was subdued by their tendency to moderate their own language and as such the severity of their problem was misconstrued by flight control.
Gaps between meanings and connotations also make direct communication more difficult and in a world where our minds are so disparate from each other any ways, this polluting of our messages makes communication of experience even more difficult.

Just like others, i also think that it is impossible to get rid of ambuguity nor get rid of people who put ambiguity on purpose. I am, for example, a fan of ambuiguity and use ambuiguity in my speech on purpose. However, there are some ways to reduce ambiguity and the best way is to continue to experience ambiguity of that sort. For example, when i was a child, i was always fooled by people tried to fool me with ambiguity. However, I was able to understand and interpret ambiguity better and better as time passed and I was less fooled by ambiguity.

The only way to eliminate ambiguity is either the speaker is willingly show that he is really absolute, the listener is really absolute or can read speaker's mind, or there is absolute proof and evidence of such topic but all 3 of them are almost impossible. However, I disagree with Han with "eliminating ambiguity could be possible when one does not speak at all." For example, when the high priests were asking Jesus a day before he died, "Are you the Son of God", he stayed silent. This is an interesting way of being ambiguous because the priest (although they highly believe he is not the Son of Man) would not know if Jesus was really Son of Man because Jesus did not show that he is absolute, they are not absolute, and they could not read his mind.

History is record of events that are written by specific person in the past. And because history is written by "certain" people, it must be biased. I believe that most of opinions given about the past or written about history have to be biased as every sentence chosen by certain person already makes it biased. And because there is no evidence (Unless we can go back to the time to observe certain event) about what really happened in the past except what's spoken by those people, it can not be justified within language.
Because language is so open to interpretation and based on the assumptions that other people will understand the words you use in the same way, it is extremely to overcome ambiguity in language. Of course, most people will understand words like 'computer' in the same way. But when one begins to examine literary works, even ordinary words are often used as metaphors or symbols. In those cases, even if the symbolism is 'obvious,' there is still ambiguity as it can be interpreted differently by different people. Thus, I believe it is impossible or very hard to overcome ambiguity in our language.

Even in words that we speak everyday - I believe it contains certain ambiguity and biased depends on how certain person comprehends it.