语言学论文(4)

Key words: phonological ambiguity, pragmatics ambiguity, lexical ambiguity.

Chapter 1Introduction

1.1 A brief introduce the definition of ambiguity in English.

English as a tool of communication exists ambiguity phenomena like any other languages. We may usually meet situations that according to different environments, the same sentence could be explained into various meanings. That is what ambiguity is. The definition of ambiguity in Webster’s Third international Dictionary (许素波 Types of Ambiguity in English, 1999-04) is “ the condition of admitting of two or more meaning, of being understood in more than one way , or of referring to two or more things at the same time” . Compared with other western languages, English has a large quantity of vocabulary especially the amount of homonym, flexible sentence structures and other distinctive features, which afford great possibility for ambiguity. From a linguistic view, we think, phonological, pragmatics, and lexical are main three factors in English ambiguity. That is the reasons why we choose these three aspects for discussion.

1.2 The importance of studying ambiguity

As we referred before, ambiguity exists in all natural languages and it could reduce the efficiency in people’s communication. But we always desire to purchase “preciseness, conciseness and lifelikeness” no matter in speaking or writing. Although some ambiguity phenomena are caused by defects in language itself, most of it is

made because of carelessness and unconsciousness. Studying ambiguity could teach us how to choose words, structures and others to express our ideas and attitudes in a very clearly way, avoiding other’s misunderstanding.

2. The phonological ambiguity

The phonological ambiguity, usually occurs on spoken language, refers to the ambiguity that caused by the identity or similarity of the words in pronunciation. This phenomenon mainly caused by homonyms. Besides, homonymous words and phrases, stress, different phonetic pause and incorrect pronunciation may also cause the phonological ambiguity.

2.1 The ambiguity caused by homophones

In the vocabulary of modern English vocabulary, there are a large number of homophones which provide ambiguity with a great deal of originality materials. Homophones refer to two words that are identical in sound but different in spelling and meaning. The frequency of the homophones is considerably high both in our daily communications and studies. Such as“dear-deer”、“meat-meet-mete”、“there-their”, “rain-reign”; All of these words are homophones which can easily cause the ambiguity of our understanding. For example the sound of “sewing “and “sowing” is just the same, it is thus hard for the hearer to tell them from the other just by hearing the sound ['s????].

In the meanwhile, there are also some perfect homophones which refer to the words that are identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning, such as “ear”, “bank”, “fan”, “bear “and so on. Actually when we encountered such words, we can infer the speaker’s intension by analyzing the language environment

2.2 The ambiguity caused by stress and phonetic pause

Stress is an important component of Pronunciation and Intonation, the different position of the stressed syllable can also cause the Ambiguity. Such as “blackboard” and “black board”, “greenhouse” and “green house”.

In the meanwhile, the different position of pause may also lead to ambiguity. For example, “peter is a short story writer.” in this sentence, with the different position of

pause, we can either translate it into “peter’s body length is short “and “the story that written by peter is short.”

2.3 The ambiguity caused by Connected Speech

According to the pronunciation rule, when one word ends with a consonant and the next word begins with a vowel sound, the sound of the final consonant and the following vowel should be linked, which made syllables between these words not clear. For example, it is hard for the hearers to tell “I saw them meat” from “I saw the meat”, or tell “he is eating an ice cake.” from “he is eating a nice cake.”

2.4 The ambiguity caused by intonation

As we all know, English is an Intonation language, so a different in tone changes the meaning of a group of words. （胡壮麟；语言学教程[M];北京；北京大学出版社；1988）For example, when we hear this sentence, “I beg your pardon.” If it is said in a rising tone, it means “please say it again.” While when it is said in a falling tone, it means “I’m sorry, please forgive.” So when we hear a word in right intonation, we can generally get the meaning of it, while if the word is said in Ambiguous tone, it is hard for the hearer to understand the real meaning of it.

3 Pragmatic Ambiguity

When coming to the ambiguities in English, the pragmatic ambiguity should not be neglected. From the aspect of pragmatics, there are three factors that cause the ambiguity in English, namely, pronouns, different contexts, and the application of euphemism and metaphor, all together leading to ambiguities in English. …… 此处隐藏：3002字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……