【英语论文】英语中的歧义现象An Analysis on Ambiguity in English.doc

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1、毕业论文 毕业论文题目：An Analysis on Ambiguity in English Abstract Ambiguity is omnipresent in languages. There have been a lot of researches about ambiguity in the past. This paper makes a comprehensive analysis on the ambiguous structures in English and classifies categories of them based on the different c

2、auses: phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, structural (grammatical) ambiguity and pragmatic ambiguity. The phenomenon of ambiguity, whenever and wherever it occurs, may directly lead to the comprehension of expression and communication. Phonetic ambiguity, that is, a word or a phrase sounds w

3、hich has at least two meanings, which occurs only in spoken English but not in written English. 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 certai

4、n ambiguous lexical items, namely to polysemous and homonymous words. In written language, the most important ambiguity phenomenon lies in structure. Structural ambiguity is also called grammatical ambiguity, which means “ambiguity caused by the varied interrelationships between words in a sentence.

5、 Even though none word is ambiguous, structurally it still generates ambiguity”. Structural ambiguity is often caused by the linear order of words in a sentence. It often takes place in spoken languages as well as in common phonetic materials. Pragmatic ambiguity denotes that the language expresses

6、different purposes or meanings in the real application. Ambiguity analysis can help improve the ability in language understanding and language application.Key Words: phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, structural ambiguity, pragmatic ambiguity摘要歧义现象在语言中无所不在，在过去已有许多相关的研究。这篇论文将对英语中所存在的歧义现象做一个全面

7、的分析。根据不同的原因，英语歧义现象总体来说可分为四大类：语音歧义，词汇歧义，结构歧义（语法歧义）和语用歧义。不论在任何时间任何地点出现歧义现象，都会对人们的理解和交流造成很大的困难。语音歧义是说一个单词或一个词组听起来至少有两个意思，这种现象只会出现在口语中。词汇歧义是指由于一词多意或同形异义的原因给人们的理解造成了许多困难。这种现象可存在于口语和书面语中。在书面语中，最重要的歧义是结构歧义，也叫语法歧义，它是由词与词之间不同的关系所造成的。即使一个句子中所有的单词都没有歧义，句子的结构也会造成歧义。语用歧义是指说话人在特定的语境中或上下文中使用不确定的或模糊的或间接的话语向听话人同时表达数

8、种言外行为或言外之意。关键词：语音歧义，词汇歧义，结构歧义，语用歧义Contents1 Introduction 61.1 Definition of Ambiguity in English.61.2 Importance of the Present Study.62 Phonetic Ambiguity.62.1 Phonetic ambiguity caused by homophones72.2 Phonetic ambiguity caused by phrases72.3 Phonetic ambiguity caused by different breath groups a

9、nd different intonation.72.4 Phonetic ambiguity caused by stress.73 Lexical Ambiguity.83.1 Lexical Ambiguity caused by homonym83.2 Lexical Ambiguity caused by polysemy.94 Structural ambiguity.104.1 Sententially structural ambiguity.104.2 Phrasally structural ambiguity.125 Pragmatic ambiguity.135.1 P

10、ragmatic ambiguity caused by implication135.2 Pragmatic ambiguity caused by transcultural background.146 Conclusion.15 1 Introduction1.1 Definition of Ambiguity in EnglishAmbiguity, as is defined in the Websters Third International Dictionary(许素波，Types of Ambiguity in English，1999-04), is “the condi

11、tion 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.

12、 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

13、 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 wri

14、tten 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,

15、 structural ambiguity, and pragmatic ambiguity.1.2 Importance of the Present StudyThrough 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 doin

16、g so, language users can get the effect of rhetorical speech of pun in order to enrich the language and make the language more humorous. Whats more, the study of ambiguity in English may also help to confirm some universal features of language and university of peoples thinking and may reveal some c

17、ultural differences.In short, the present study of ambiguity in English can arouse many peoples interest and will help people to attain a better understanding of how language works in peoples mind. During our time of learning English, we should attach more importance to it.2 Phonetic AmbiguityPhonet

18、ic 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).2.1 Phonetic ambiguity caused by homophonesHomophone means that a word that is pronounced like another word but has a different spelling or mean

19、ing(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,

20、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 a

21、nd 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, b

22、ut 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

23、 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 phrasesPhrases that are formed of more than one word usually contain the following elements: head, specifier

24、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 vowe

25、l, 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 eaterThe two phrases sound similarly, however, the meaning of the fo

26、rmer 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 c

27、aused 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 Pete

28、r 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 intonat

29、ion.“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 stressStress means that a term used in semantic analysis to refer to a lexical item which

30、 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 preserve food by putting it in a can”, the sentence means they eat the food which is putted in a can

31、. 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

32、 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

33、language. Its existence is attributed to certain ambiguous lexical items, namely to polysemous and homonymous words which bound in the English vocabulary.3.1 Lexical Ambiguity caused by homonymIn the English, there are many pairs of groups of words, which, though different in meaning, are pronounced

34、 alike, or spelled alike, or both, such words are called homonyms(张韵斐 现代英语词汇学概论 2004).(1) He took the lead yesterday.This is a very simple sentence both lexically and structurally, but it is ambiguous. Here the ambiguity resides in the homographic word “lead”. Pronounced either as li:d,meaning “a le

35、ading role or part” or as led meaning “a kind of metal”. Thus the sentence may be interpreted to mean either that “He took a leading part (in a certain activity) yesterday” or that “He took away the lead (a kind of metal) yesterday”.(2) After operation, he could not bear children.Here the perfect ho

36、monym “bear” must necessarily function syntactically as a verb, but the sentence itself can not tell which of the meanings was intended by the speaker or writer. Does it mean “give birth to; produce” or “put up with; tolerate”? In this case, the context in which the sentence is uttered or used often

37、 serves to remove the potential ambiguity.(3) He likes China (china).In this sentence, “China” and “china” may be said to be a pair of homophonic words. “China” with the first letter capitalized, denotes “a country in Asia”, while “china” with the first letter in its small form, means “crockery”. It

38、 is necessary to say that this kind of ambiguity caused by homophones, only exists in spoken English. Spell out, and the homophonic word will become disambiguated immediately. 3.2 Lexical Ambiguity caused by polysemyA term used in semantic analysis to refer to a lexical item which has a range of dif

39、ferent meanings(张韵斐 现代英语词汇学概论 2004).(1) The food is not hot. The word “hot” can be translated into “having a high temperature” or “spicy”.(2) He refused to pay for the board. Here ambiguity obtains on account of the polysemous word “board”. The sentence can either be interpreted as “He refused to gi

40、ve money for his meals” or as “He refuses to pay money for the councilors” or even as “He refuses to pay money for the “table”, etc. in the absence of the context.(3) She is an English teacher.This nominal phrase “an English teacher” can be comprehended in “a teacher from England” or “a teacher who

41、teaches English language”. From the above for examples, a conclusion may be drawn that some sentences obtain ambiguity in both written and spoken form, while some, which are ambiguous in written form, may be free from the ambiguity in speech or vice verse. It is a fact that most ambiguous sentences

42、of this kind will become disambiguated when provided with the context, but in not few cases they may cause confusion, uncertainty and misunderstanding in the mind of the listener or reader. It is also arranged on the part of literary men for stylistic purpose to achieve a variety of stylistic effect

43、s such as humor, irony, emphasis and contrast, etc. For example, a very commonly-used and effective rhetorical device, are the results of making use of polysemous and homonymous words purposely so as to make the sentences ambiguous.4 Structural ambiguityIn written language materials, the most import

44、ant ambiguity phenomenon lies in structure. Structural ambiguity is also called grammatical ambiguity, which means “ambiguity caused by the varied interrelationships between words in a sentence. Even though none word is ambiguous, structurally it might still generate ambiguity” (何冬兰 On English Struc

45、tural Ambiguity 2006-06). Structural ambiguity is often caused by the linear order of words in a sentence. It often takes place in spoken languages as well as in common phonetic materials.Structural ambiguity can be divided into two types, one is sententially structural ambiguity; the other is phras

46、ally structural ambiguity.4.1 Sentential structural ambiguityThis kind of ambiguity only exists within a certain kinds of sentences, which are specially structured. Unlike phrasal structural ambiguity, it could not be discussed without the context of sentences.4.1.1 Caused by the simplified forms of

47、 comparative structureIn English, adverbial clause of comparative degree is often abridged. It is easy to cause ambiguity. We can sort it out and analyze it. Example 1: I know him better than you.It can be explained as “I know him better than you do” or as “I know him better than I know you.”Example 2: Lily likes Harry as well as Joe.It can be understood as “Lily likes Harry as well as Joe does” or as “Lily likes Harry as well as she like