The extent to which vague language is present in formal written discourse is the focus of this paper.
The study compared the use of vague language in the speeches of four Nigerian presidents focusing on vague quantifiers and linguistic approximators as types of vague language and it
investigated the functions and frequency of the items.
Using the relevance theory framework and employing corpus linguistics methodologies through AntConc 3.5.8, the study analysed a corpus of 16 Nigerian presidential speeches from Presidents: Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar‟Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari (from 1999 to date). The study examined the
functions of the quantifying expressions and determined their frequency of use, on president-by-president basis in the corpus.
The study found that vague quantifying expressions were used to
make quantifications inexact and to convey a range of vague propositions as well as make statements that were general in nature rather than being specific.