语言学歧义现象

A Linguistic Analysis on Lexical Ambiguity

I. Introduction

Ambiguity is everywhere and becomes a fundamental problem of language comprehension and communication. Since it was put forward, it has attracted a lot of attention. Different linguists hold different definition. The famous linguist Chomsky holds that “ambiguity occurs when an expression has grammatical structure and is semantically relational but its deep structure can be interpreted in two or more ways.” (1965:25) While Professor Xu holds that “A mbiguity 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.”(1994:04)

Although their definitions are not the same, they share a common characteristic, that is, ambiguity is with various understandings or multi-meanings.

From previous study, ambiguity can be sub-divided into four categories: phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity and pragmatic ambiguity. This paper I will focus on lexical ambiguity.

Firstly, I will find out the reasons for ambiguity. I shall put forward six different aspects from the perspective of lexical which include homonym, polysemy, idiom and historical change, dialectical and categorical differences. Secondly, I will introduce some methods for clearing out this kind of ambiguities. I sincerely hope that these methods can help people achieve successful communication in their daily life and help English readers and learners understand without mistakes.

II. Analysis of lexical ambiguity

As I said before, lexical ambiguity can include six different aspects. Since there are

many unknown occasions, we should pay attention to the implied meaning after the literal meaning and look it over carefully when we meet a word or phrase. In the following part I will elaborate on these six aspects and also give you some examples for better understanding.

2.1 Lexical Ambiguity caused by homonym

In the English, there are many pairs of groups of words, which, though different in meaning, are pronounced alike, or spelled alike, or both, such words are called homonyms. (张韵斐,周锡卿现代英语词汇学概论2004)

(1)Did you enjoy your date?

This is a very simple sentence. The ambiguity consists in this complete homonym word” dates”. It can be interpreted as “a meeting that you have arranged with a boyfriend or girlfriend or with sb. who might become a boyfriend or girlfriend” or” a sweet sticky brown fruit that grows on a tree called a date palm, common in N Africa and W Asia ” (Definition from the Oxfor d Advanced Learner‟s English-Chinese Dictionary).

(2)Can you see the bow (bough) from this photo?

In this sentence, “bow” and” bough” is a pair of homophonic words. The word “bow” means” a weapon used for shooting arrows”, while the word” bough” means “a la rge branch of a tree”. This ambiguity only exists in oral English, which is caused by homophones. If we write them on paper, the ambiguity will disappear.

(3)Have you noticed my mate?

In this sentence, ambiguity is caused by the word “mate”, which belongs to homographic words. If its pronunciation is [meit], it means” A good friend or companion”. However, when it is pronounced as [ mætei], it means “A tealike beverage, popular in South America, made from the dried leaves of this plant.” Then this sentence can be interpreted as “Have you noticed my companion” or “Have you noticed my drink (a kind of beverage)”. (Definition from the American Heritage Dictionary)