试论英语歧义结构及其运用(英文)

Abstract: Ambiguity is the linguistic unit that a language project (including words and sentence) or a text (a poem, a paragraph of narration or an advertisement) which has two or more than two meanings. English ambiguity can be divided into three main parts: lexical ambiguity, syntactic or grammatical ambiguity and phonetic ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity occurs when an item in the same sentence has different lexical meanings; syntactic or grammatical ambiguity occurs when a construction serves different grammatical functions; phonetic ambiguity may be caused by homophones, or by the speaker’s liaison, resulting in ambiguity in hearers. Ambiguity is a powerful weapon used in rebuttal of debating in the court. It is also widely used in literature, taking the effects of exaggeration, humor and sarcasm. Using ambiguity in daily communication appropriately can make the conversation more humorous and interesting. 

Key words: Lexical ambiguity; Grammatical ambiguity; Phonetic ambiguity; Using

摘  要：歧义是指一个语言单位（词语或句子）或者一篇文章（诗歌、记叙文或者广告词）包含两种或多种意思。英语歧义大致分为词汇歧义、结构歧义和语音歧义三种基本类型：同一词语在句中有不同的词汇意义时会引起词汇歧义；同一句法成分在句中可以看成具有不同的语法功能时会出现结构歧义；语音歧义则可能由于同音字引起的，也可能是说话人连读而使听话人产生歧义。歧义结构可运用于法庭辩论中，成为一种极有力的武器；歧义结构也广泛运用于文学作品中，从而起到夸张、幽默和讽刺的作用；在日常交流中适当运用歧义结构，可使交谈变得幽默、风趣。

关键词：词汇歧义；结构歧义；语音歧义；运用

Introduction
Ambiguity is existed in all languages; no wonder that English is included. Kess and Hope raised the theory in their book Ambiguity in Psycholinguistics: “Without ambiguity, without language.” He said “Upon careful consideration, one cannot but be amazed at the ubiquity of ambiguity in language.”
We may not understand the common features of ambiguity in an extreme way; however, its existence in linguistics could not be ignored. Kempson pointed out: “All the words and phrases have more than one meaning.” But Leech in England defined ambiguity as this: “A language project has more than one cognitive meaning.” Thus, most of the linguists believe that the phrase or sentence which obeys the grammatical rule in construction and in line with the logical common sense in semantics, when deeply analyzed, it may combine two or more than two meanings. Then, ambiguity occurred [1]. However, the above understandings of ambiguity are restricted in words and sentences. In fact, when using language, we may find that ambiguity also existed in paragraph and text. So the author holds the opinion that we may understand ambiguity like this: Ambiguity is the linguistic phenomenon that a language project (including words and sentence) or a text (a poem, a paragraph of narration or an advertisement) which has two or more than two meanings.
Many linguists have already noticed this special linguistic phenomenon and analyzed it. However, most of the researchers are restricted in the conclusion of the classifications of ambiguity or the description of the phenomenon of ambiguity. They haven’t put it in communication, the actual using. What’s more, when researching such a phenomenon, many linguists are started from the fixed ambiguity; they went away from the context as far as they can. This must because that ambiguous phenomenon itself is conducted by some single sentences with different meanings. But from the angle of communicative linguistics, we can see that it is against the essential characteristics of language use to fragment the deep structure and surface structure of it and treat separately.
In this thesis, some types of ambiguity and the factors which cause ambiguity were analyzed and described. This essay mainly describes three types of English ambiguous sentences. Lexical ambiguity occurs when an item in the same sentence has different lexical meanings, and syntactic or grammatical ambiguity occurs when a construction serves different grammatical functions. Phonetic ambiguity may be caused by homophones, or by the speaker’s liaison, resulting in ambiguity in hearers. Ambiguity is a powerful weapon used in rebuttal of debating in the court. It is also widely used in literature, taking the effects of exaggeration, humor and sarcasm. Using ambiguity in daily communication appropriately can make the conversation more humorous and interesting.

1  The present situation and research on English ambiguity
Generally speaking, most of the linguists think that ambiguity is negative; we should not use it often in daily life. The reason may be that it may cause misunderstanding or set a barrier in communication. However, there are still some linguists hold the opinion that ambiguity is a kind of positive phenomenon. Ancient Rome rhetoricians believed that ambiguity was a powerful weapon in debate. Moreover, it is also the priority of language itself. In the early times, the research on ambiguity is resourced from homonymy and puns. As a result, it made people paying attention to phonetic, lexical and grammatical ambiguity. Sometimes, the debate was always about whether a word was a polysemy or a homonym. In the 1970s, British linguists studied a lot about the constructions of ambiguity. They made argumentation of the phenomenon from the angle of descriptive linguistic and concluded the general rules. They also concluded some methods which distinguish the real ambiguity and the false one. Besides, other linguists made systematic study of ambiguity from the aspects of phonetics, grammaticism as well as semantics [2]. Some domestic learners also studied a lot about ambiguity and wrote many books. Such as On the English Ambiguity written by Zhang Keli; English Ambiguity by Qiu Shude; A Brief Analyze on the Course of English Ambiguous Sentences and Its Avoidance by Bai Yujie and Wang Zhiqiang; The Course of Syntactic Ambiguity and its Treatment by Yuan Jun. They analyzed a lot on the classifications as well as the courses of ambiguity and concluded a lot of methods that may avoid ambiguity.   转贴于 酷文网-论文下载中心 http://www.coolwen.net