之意。

关键词：< /p>

语音歧义，词汇歧义，结构歧义，语用歧义

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毕业设计（论文）

Contents

1 Introduction

…………

……………………………………………………

6

1.1 Definition of Ambiguity in English. .................................................. .................6

1.2 Importance of the Present Study

………………………………………………

.6

2 Phonetic Ambiguity

………………………………………………………

.6

2.1 Phonetic ambiguity caused by homophones

……………………………………

7

2.2 Phonetic ambiguity caused by phrases

…………………………………………

7

2.3 Phonetic ambiguity caused by different breath groups and different intonation.7

2.4 Phonetic ambiguity caused by stress

…………………………………………

...7

3 Lexical Ambig uity

………………………………………………………

... 8

3.1 Lexical Ambiguity caused by homonym

………………………………………

8

3.2 Lexical Ambiguity caused by polysem y

………………………………………

.9

4 Structural ambiguity

………… …………………………………………

.10

4.1 Sententially structural ambiguity

…………………………………………

......10

4.2 Phrasally structural ambiguity

...12

5 Pragmatic a mbiguity

……………………………………………………

.13

4

毕业设计（论文）

5.1 Pragmatic ambiguity caused by implication

……………………………

13

5.2 Pragmatic ambiguity caused by transcultural background

………………

..14

6 Conclus ion

…………………………………………………………

.15

5

毕业设计（论文）

1 Introduction

1.1

Definition

of

Ambiguity in English

Ambiguity,

as

is

defined

in

the

Webster‟s

Third

International

< br>Dictionar

y(

许素波，

Types

of

Ambiguity

in

English

，

1999-04)

,

is

“the

condition

of

admitting

of

two

or

more

meanings,

of

being understood in more than one way, or

of referring to two or more things at the same time.”

In ordinary books on linguistics, it is generally defined roughly as linguistic phenomenon that a

word phrase or clause can have more than one interpretation. Ambiguity, as a pervasive feature

of the English language, existing in both spoken and written forms, and occurs for a variety of

reasons, such as the phonetic reason that in connected speech, two or more different strings of

lexical

items

happen

to

take

on

the

same

phonological

form

as

a

result

of

sound

liaison,

the

lexical

reason,

for

instance,

ambiguity

can

be

given

rise

to

owing

to

the

homonymy

and

polysemy of the vocabulary, and the structural reason, namely ambiguity can also be attributed to

different grammatical analysis of a phrase or clause.

Ambiguity can exist in both spoken and written forms of English and arise through a variety

of

ways.

From

a

purely

linguistic

point

of

view,

however,

ambiguity

can

be

accounted

for

by

mainly four factors: the phonetic, the lexical, the structural, and the pragmatic, hence four types

of ambiguity occur: phonetic ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, structural ambiguity, and pragmatic

ambiguity.

1.2

Importance of the Present Study

Through the present study of ambiguity, we can avoid misunderstanding caused by ambiguity

effectively.

Meanwhile,

this

can

also

help

the

learners

improve

their

understanding

and

translation

of

English.

Besides,

by

doing

so,

language

users

can

get

the

effect

of

rhetorical

speech of pun in order to enrich the language and

make the language more humorous. What

‟

s

more,

the

study

of

ambiguity

in

English

may

also

help

to

confirm

some

universal

features

of

language and university of people

‟

s thinking and may reveal some cultural differences.

In short, the present study of ambiguity in English can arouse many people

‟

s interest and will

help people to attain a better understanding of how language works in people

‟

s mind. During our

time of learning English, we should attach more importance to it.

2 Phonetic Ambiguity

Phonetic ambiguity, that is, a word or a phrase sounds that it has at least two meanings, occurs

only in spoken English but not in written English(

邱述德

英语歧义

1998)

.

6

毕业设计（论文）

2.1 Phonetic ambiguity caused by homophones

Homophone

means

that

a

word

that

is

pronounced

like

another

word

but

has

a

different

spelling or meaning

(

张韵斐

现代英语词汇学概论

2004)

.

The

examples

analyzed

below

are

several

pairs

of

words

which

have

the

same

sound

but

different

meanings.

If

they

appear

in

the

spoken

language,

you

will

have

difficulty

in

telling

them apart.

(1) a: He is sowing now.

b: He is sewing now.

sow

and

sew

have

the

same

pronunciation,

however,

sow

in

sentence

a

means

“

to

plant

or

scatter seeds

”

, and sew in sentence b means

“

to join pieces of cloth together using a needle and

thread

”

.

(2) a: Throw the flower away.

b: Throw the flower away.

flower and flour are a pair of homophones, flower: noun, the part of a plant, often beautiful

and

colored,

that

produces

seeds

or

fruit,

flour:

noun,

power

made

from

wheat

and

used

for

making bread or cakes. In spoken language, it is difficult for you to tell flower and flour apart.

(3) a: He is flying to Oakland.

b: He is flying to Oakland.

Oakland in sentence a is a city of State California, but Oakland in sentence b is a city of New

Zealand. They are a pair of homophones.

(4

) “When does the baker follow his trade?”

“Whenever he kneads the dough.”

This

example

uses

“need”

and

“

knead”

which

are

a

pair

of

homophones

and

added

the

polysemous word” dough”(In slang, this

word means money),which makes it difficult for us to

know that whether the baker begins his business when he needs the money or the baker begins

his business when he rubs the dough.

2.2 Phonetic ambiguity caused by phrases

Phrases that are formed of more than one word usually contain the following elements: head,

specifier and complement (The word around which a phrase is formed is termed head. The word

on the left side of the heads are said to function as specifier. The words on the right side of the

heads are complement) (

戴炜栋

简明英语语言学教程

1989

).

If the end of one word is a consonant sound while the next begins with a vowel, the consonant

sounds

naturally

to

be

the

part

of

the

next

word.

This

phonetic

rule,

as

everybody

knows,

is

called

sound- linking

or

sound

liaison.

This

phenomenon

as

often

as

not

cause

ambiguity,

for

example,

a bee feeder / a beef eater

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毕业设计（论文）

The two phrases sound similarly, however, the meaning of the former is absolutely different

from the latter. The former means that a man who feeds bee, while the latter means that a man

who eats beef.

There are a lot of similar examples: a trained deer/ a train dear; a name / an aim; a nice girl /

an ice girl; an ear-phone / a near phone.

2.3 Phonetic ambiguity caused by different breath groups and different intonation

(1) A range of sounds of some words which constitute a sentence pronounce together without

stop called breath group(

邱述德

英语歧义

1998

).

“

Peter is a short story writer

”

This sentence has two meanings because of different breath groups. One is that Peter is a story

writer who is short (Peter is / a short / story writer), the other is that Peter is a writer who is good

at writing short stories (Peter is / a short story / writer).

(2) The rise and the fall of the voice in speaking, especially as this affects the meaning of what

is said called intonation.

“

I beg your pardon

”

.

If this sentence is said with a rising tone, it means

“

please say it again

”

. If it is said with a

falling tone, it means

“

I am sorry, please forgive me

”

.

2.4 Phonetic ambiguity caused by stress

Stress means that a term used in semantic analysis to refer to a lexical item which has a range

of different meanings(

戴炜栋

简明英语语言学教程

1989

).

The peasant grows a lot of fruit. They eat what they can, and can what they cannot.

In this sentence, when the verb “can” is

stressed, it means “to preser

ve food by putting it in a

can”

, the sentence means they

eat

the

food which is

putted in

a can.

When it is

unstressed, it

means “be

able to”, used as a modal verb

, the sentence means they eat what they are be able to

eat the amount of the food.

Phonetic ambiguity sometimes does cause misunderstanding to people, yet it could be got rid

of if enough attention is paid to the context in which the utterance concerned is made, and to the

phonetic features of the language in speech.

3 Lexical Ambiguity

Compared

with

the

phonetic

ambiguity,

lexical

ambiguity

might

cause

much

more

complicated problems in the understanding of the language, for it exists not only in spoken form

but

also

in

written

language.

Its

existence

is

attributed

to

certain

ambiguous

lexical

items,

namely to polysemous and homonymous words which bound in the English vocabulary.

8