Investigating ambiguity: a semantic analysis of intentional and unintentional ambiguity

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INVESTIGATING AMBIGUITY: A SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF INTENTIONAL AND UNINTENTIONAL AMBIGUITY

Inesa Baybakova, Oleksandra Hasko

The article concerns the concept of ambiguity in terms of its intentional vs unintentional usage with reference to phonology, grammar and lexis, presenting the corresponding reasons and consequences in everyday communication. Ambiguity as a linguistic phenomenon has already been in the focus of investigation from different points of view, namely phonological, grammatical and lexical. Taking into account the issues mentioned above, the article dwells on both intentional and unintentional ambiguity or in other words its conscious and subconscious aspects.

The analysis carried out covers different notions of the phenomena being compared, contrasted and described with reference to grammar, phonology and lexis. The comparison between conscious and subconscious ambiguity has proved that intentional usage of ambiguous items is aimed at making everyday communication more expressive and vivid appealing to our sense of humour, while subconscious ambiguity may be treated as a beneficial aspect, but it also may result in confusion and embarrassment. Intentional ambiguity turned out to be quite effective in advertising and, thus. may be in the focus of further studies.

Key words: linguistic ambiguity notion, semantic analysis, intentional/conscious ambiguity, unintentional/subconscious ambiguity, interpretation of meaning, transformational rules.

Байбакова Інеса, Гасько Олександра

Дослідження двозначності: семантичний аналіз навмисної та ненавмисної двозначності

Стаття присвячена дослідженню двозначності щодо її навмисного/ненавмисного, іншими словами, усвідомленого та неусвідомленого використання, з погляду фонології, граматики та лексики. У ній представлені також причини та наслідки двозначності у повсякденному спілкуванні. Завдяки своїй нечіткості та неточності двозначність, яка асоціюється у мовній системі з кількома значеннями, дозволяє різні інтерпретації, що спричиняють гумористичний ефект або призводять до непорозуміння. Таким чином, вивчення двозначності вимагає семантичного аналізу із ретельним розглядом аспектів її усвідомленості чи неусвідомленості.

Фонологічна двозначність має місце, коли поверхневі структури різних речень підлягають однаковій фонологічній інтерпретації. Звучання є важливим, оскільки одне і те ж речення, вимовлене з низхідною чи висхідною інтонаціями, часто міняє сенс.

Граматична двозначність трапляється там, де граматична структура одного речення уможливлює більше, ніж одне тлумачення. Неусвідомлене використання двозначності у граматиці можна помітити при вживанні відносних займенників, допоміжних дієслів, дієприкметника теперішнього часу чи двозначної граматичної конструкції, де не самі слова, а власне їх поєднання є причиною двозначності.

Відомо, що лексична двозначність має подвійну природу: синтаксичну та семантичну. Синтаксичний тип в основному стосується граматичних структур та їх конотацій, тоді, як семантична двозначність є головним джерелом лексичної дуальності. Вона базується на полісемії та омонімії.

Здійснений аналіз охоплює різні поняття та аспекти досліджених і описаних явищ з огляду граматики, фонології та лексики. Порівняння усвідомленої та неусвідомленої двозначності засвідчило, що навмисне використання двозначності має на меті зробити повсякденну комунікацію виразнішою та яскравішою, апелюючи до нашого почуття гумору. Натомість ненавмисна двозначність може стати причиною плутанини і збентеження. Навмисна двозначність виявилась досить ефективною в рекламі, що робить її цікавим об'єктом подальшого вивчення.

Ключові слова: поняття лінгвістичної двозначності, семантичний аналіз, навмисна/усвідомлена двозначність, ненавмисна/неусвідомлена двозначність, інтерпретація значення, правила трансформації.

Байбакова Инесса, Гасько Александра

Исследование двусмысленности: преднамеренная и непреднамеренная двусмысленность

Статья посвящена исследованию двусмысленности, ее преднамеренного/непреднамеренного использования с точки зрения фонологии, грамматики и лексики. В ней представлены также соответственные причины и следствия двусмысленности в повседневном общении. Будучи нечеткой и неточной, двусмысленность ассоциируется в языковой системе с несколькими значениями, разрешая разные интерпретации, которые производят юмористический эффект, либо приводят к недоразумению. Таким образом, изучение двусмысленности требует семантического анализа с тщательным рассмотрением аспектов ее осознанности или неосознанности.

Фонологическая двусмысленность имеет место, когда поверхностные структуры различных предложений подлежат одинаковой фонологической интерпретации. Звучание является важным, поскольку одно и то же предложение, произнесенное с нисходящей или восходящей интонациями, часто меняет смысл.

Грамматическая двусмысленность встречается там, где грамматическая структура одного предложения, делает возможным более, чем одно толкование. Неосознанное использование двусмысленности в грамматике можно заметить при использовании относительных местоимений, вспомогательных глаголов, причастия настоящего времени или двусмысленной грамматической конструкции, в которой не сами слова, а именно их сочетание является причиной двусмысленности.

Известно, что лексическая двусмысленность обладает двойственной природой: синтаксической и семантической. Синтаксический тип в основном касается грамматических структур и их коннотаций, в то время как семантическая двусмысленность является главным источником лексической дуальности. Она основывается на полисемии и омонимии.

Произведенный анализ включает разные понятия и аспекты исследованных явлений с точки зрения грамматики, фонологии и лексики. Сравнение осознанной и неосознанной двусмысленности показало, что преднамеренное использование двусмысленности предназначено для того, чтобы сделать повседневную коммуникацию более выразительной и яркой, обращаясь к нашему чувству юмора. В то же время непреднамеренная двусмысленность может стать причиной путаницы и замешательства. Преднамеренная двусмысленность оказалась достаточно эффективной в рекламе, что делает ее интересным объектом дальнейшего изучения.

Ключевые слова: понятие лингвистической двусмысленности, семантический анализ, преднамеренная/осознанная двусмысленность, непреднамеренная/неосознанная двусмысленность, интерпретация значения, правила трансформации.

Formulation of a research problem and its significance. Being associated in the language system with several meanings, ambiguity due to its vagueness and inexactness allows different interpretations producing humorous effect or causing misunderstanding, confusion and embarrassment. Thus, its investigation requires semantic analysis with special attention paid to intentional/unintentional factors.

Analysis of the research into this problem. Ambiguity as a linguistic phenomenon has already been in the focus of investigation [3-7] from different points of view, namely phonological [9] , grammatical [2] and lexical [11]. Taking into account the issues mentioned above, the article dwells on both intentional and unintentional ambiguity or in other words its conscious and subconscious aspects.

The goal and the specific tasks of the article. The article is aimed at analyzing the concept of ambiguity in terms of its intentional vs unintentional usage with reference to phonology, grammar and lexis, presenting the corresponding reasons and consequences in everyday communication.

Statement regarding the basic material of the research and the justification of the results obtained. In Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ambiguity is defined as “the state of being unclear, confusing or uncertain, or things that produce this effect”. (Longman Dictionary, 2003: 93). The second definition taken from All Words.com MultiLingual Dictionary presents the concept as “something liable to more than one interpretation, explanation or meaning, if that meaning etc cannot be determined from its context” [13]. Still a different definition of the word ambiguity focuses on the fact that “it arises from the existence of transformational rules which produce identical surface results from different deep sources, and from simultaneous existence of words which can function in dual syntactic capacities” [9].

The main focus first is to deal with the concept of unintentional ambiguity, the use of language in which words, phrases, sentences with more than one sense happen subconsciously. Unintentional ambiguity can be divided into grammatical, phonological and lexical fields. All the examples included below are devoted to present unintentional form of language duality.

Grammatical ambiguity is known to occur if a grammatical structure of one sentence may be interpreted in two ways. An interpretation allows for two different meanings to exist both of which are lingually and logically correct [4]. Subconscious usage of ambiguity in grammatical field may be noticed, for instance, in relative pronouns, auxiliary verbs, present participle, post-modifiers and amphibology. ambiguity semantic intentional

According to Ullmann [11] ambiguity may also arise from the structure of a sentence. Such a source of ambiguous phrasing is called amphibology where words in a sentence are not ambiguous but they are combined in a way that creates more than one interpretation. The above linguistic event is so called only when it happens unintentionally. The example presented below is amphibological: I met a number of old friends and acquaintances [11, p. 158]. The ambiguity in the above exemplar arises because of the word “old” which may relate to words friends as well as acquaintances or only the former one. Most ambiguities of such kinds may be clarifying by the context or by intonation while making a speech [11].

Ambiguity can also appear when present participle is placed after a noun. The interpretation here may be dual because present participle may function as a present participial clause or as an adjectival noun complement. E.g. A boy looked at the girl reading a book [6, p. 264].

The important fact here is that present participle `reading' functions as a dual meaning because it may refer to a boy or to a girl. In fact, there only exists one correct interpretation where putting intonation and stress in the right place of a sentence is the key not to be misinterpreted [6].

Phonological ambiguity occurs when surface structures of different sentences are given the same phonological interpretation [2, p. 300]. While analyzing this kind of double meaning, we will focus on the aspect of language such as: pronunciation, words easily confused, stress and intonation, homophones. O'Connor [8] points out that a musical tone has to be mentioned as something that has a significant influence on ambiguity. Words, phrases and sentences differ in melody since a speaker may add a particular mood to any utterance. They may be articulated definitely or with hesitation; angrily or kindly; with interest or without any involvement. That is to say, a meaning of English tune is important to be known because one sentence which is pronounced in falling or rising intonation, often changes a sense. The English language is characterized by use of falling intonation while using Wh- questions but contrary to this a speaker uses rising tone to intonate Yes/No and stative questions. Yes/No questions may create misinterpretations if they are intonated in a falling pitch, for example, You like the Beatles?(14) This is a statement form, but here it functions as a question, therefore the voice should go from higher tone but if not, then a speaker may be misunderstood.

Needless to say, consonants may be both voiced and voiceless and what is important, they cannot be articulated interchangeably, for their meaning may be confusing for a listener. There are some pair of words in which this is clearly presented, for example, bleeding and bleating. If a speaker pronounces /t/ as a voiced sound in a word “bleating”, then it may confuse the hearer. E.g. A lamb is bleating.

To sum it up, rules concerning pronunciation must be respected by learners because they make communication successful.

Lexical ambiguity is known to have a double source: syntactic and semantic form. The former one refers to ambiguity of words and hence the category they belong to. However, the latter type of lexical ambiguity is analyzed in terms of linguistic phenomenon called polyvalency [10]. This passage will deal only with the semantic kind of lexical ambiguity due to the fact that the syntactic kind is more related to grammatical structures and their connotations. First of all, semantic ambiguity has to be mentioned as the most crucial source of lexical duality. It is based on polysemy and homonymy. There is a significant difference between them since polysemous words, in contrast to homonymy, share not strictly related but still similar meanings. Below, we will deal with them separately, giving examples to present their influence on the process of ambiguity.

Generally speaking, polysemy is a vast source of ambiguity. Polysemy items are specified as a fundamental characteristic of everyday speech. In fact, this multiplicity of meaning arises when one word used in different contexts has several senses. That is to say, one word may function with double, triple or even more senses which are contextualized. Polysemous words include both literal and derived meaning, both of which are sometimes not so clear to be intelligible, however their senses somehow relate to each other [11].

From words such as “bed”, “mouse” a literal meaning seems to be obvious but there are some words like “position” in which original sense is questionable. One of the features of polysemy is point of reference What is meant by referential polysemy is double meaning of one word and the link between these two senses, for example: She could hear the piano / She polished the piano (15). Here, the word “piano” occurs as a sound, an object and the link between them is related to the object they refer to.

The concept of intentional ambiguity refers to the use of language in which its units like words, phrases, sentences are used consciously. Intentional duality can be divided into grammatical, phonological and lexical linguistic areas. If linguistic duality in communication is used for purpose, we may predicate their different reasons. In general, these reasons may have roots in producing humour and irony or ambiguous items are often phenomenon in literature and advertisement.

The concept of grammatical ambiguity which was mentioned at the beginning plays also an important and active role in its intentional usage. The use of grammatical structures in written and oral language may be the source of intentional ambiguity for language users. Grammatical structures which will be mentioned below are the following: deictic expressions, word-formation and reflexive pronouns.

Deictic expressions like `that', `they', `here', `tomorrow', `now' have to be mentioned because of their vast usage in puns. The short joke presented below clearly explains the intentional usage of ambiguity. Doctor: How are you feeling today? - Patient: My breathing still troubles me. - Doctor: Mm! We must put a stop to that. (16) The deictic expression `that' may be understood in two ways since `that' refers to cure the patient for breathing disorder or to stop him from breathing at all.

Another grammatical structure which is used for intentional ambiguity concerns word- formation but strictly speaking it refers to abbreviation. There are some shortened words which sound and look alike but their sense differs.

Sometimes the conscious use of double meaning may serve to rise one's social status, e.g. a G- man as a government man and a garbage man (17).

Batko states that such pronouns as reflexive as well as intensive are often misused by a speaker and misinterpreted by a hearer. These two kinds of pronouns, however, consist of the same words like: `myself', `yourself', `himself', `herself', `itself', `ourselves', `yourselves', `themselves', their usage differs. There exists a significant contrast between them, which is exemplified below: Tired of cleaning yourself? Let our trained staff do it for you.

The pronoun `yourself' may be interpreted either reflexively or intensively. The reflexive function refers to the subject of a sentence and the meaning, here, denotes a person who does households. Another interpretation alludes to the use of intensive pronouns where the pronoun `yourself' indicates and emphasises the role of the subject and suggests that a person cleans himself/herself. Batko continues stating that the role of reflexive pronouns is to emphasise one's action whereas the aim of intensive pronouns is to emphasise that the subject is forced or pleased to do something.

Talking about phonological ambiguity we can describe homophones and expressions that are known as implications.

Homophones can be mentioned as examples of an enormous source of phonological ambiguity. Homophones are words which are identical in pronunciation, but what makes them different is their spelling and meaning. They are ambiguously interpreted not only by a foreigner, but also natives often encounter vagueness while using them. The context is the key to avoid such ambiguous pair of words. The example below presents the use of phonological ambiguity in literature which is often used by writers as a device of style. “Mine is a long and sad tale ” said the mouse, turning to Alice and sighing. “It is a long tail, certainly” said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; “but why do you call it sad?” [5, p. 42].

There are a lot of homophones in the English language which are very productive in the field of advertising. The objective of using such phonological duality is to promote new products. Such words evoke feelings and emotions in such a way that they may encourage customers to get promoted goods. The sentence below gives an example of intentional use of homophones. The advertised product, flour, encourages clients with the slogan: Everybody kneads it [12, p. 96]. The verb `kneads' used in a spoken language may refer to its homophone `need'. Hence, every single object may be promoted by using smart methods like this.

Intentional lexical ambiguity refers us to semantics. Semantic duality includes polysemy and homonymy which are often intended by a speaker. A particular place where polysemous and homonymous items occur are advertisements and humour.

Polysemy items, in contrast to homonymy, are essential and indispensable in some aspects of life. Words, identical in spelling and articulation, due to polysemy enrich our life and language awareness. E.g. Professor addressing the audience, - Order, gentlemen. - A student,-Beer, sir. In this pun the noun `order' may be understood as proper behaviour in the classroom (meant by Professor) or something ordered, e.g. in a pub (as in student's remark).

The following lexical item used consciously concerns metaphors, along with idiomatic expressions. These linguistic phenomena are usually used to express one's thoughts and to emphasize one's action. Both metaphors and idiomatic phrases are often used to describe human behavior in a way that they refer to one's mental and physical state. Metaphors cannot be taken literally since then they lose actual sense (Deignan, 2005). The example below refers to the use of metaphors: I'm afraid I cried on his shoulders a little [3, p. 64]. The above exemplar possesses two senses, literal and metaphorical one. The first one means that a person did the action in which he or she was crying and tears fell down on somebody's shoulder. In fact, the meaning of the above sentence implies that the one tells somebody his/her troubles and worries to elicit sympathy [5].

Conclusions and prospects for further research. The analysis carried out covers different notions of the phenomena being compared, contrasted and described with reference to grammar, phonology and lexis. The comparison between conscious and subconscious ambiguity has proved that intentional usage of ambiguous items is aimed at making everyday communication more expressive and vivid appealing to our sense of humour, while subconscious ambiguity may be treated as a beneficial aspect, but it also may result in confusion and embarrassment. Intentional ambiguity turned out to be quite effective in advertising and, thus. may be in the focus of further studies.

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References

1. Batko, A. 2004. When bad grammar happens to good people: how to avoid common errors in English. USA: The Career Press Inc.

2. Danny, D. Steinberg, and Jakobovits, L. A. 1978. Semantics. An Interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics and psychology. London: Cambridge University Press.

3. Deignan, A. 2005. Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing company.

4. Hughes, W., and Lavery, J. 2004. Critical Thinking. An Introduction to the Basic Skills. Canada: Broadview Press Ltd.

5. Keith, A. 2001. Natural Language Semantics. Great Britain: Blackwell Publishers.

6. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk B., 2008. Asymmetric Events. The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

7. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, edited by S. Bullon. 2003. Harlow: Pearson Longman.

8. O'Connor, J. 2006. Better English Pronunciation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

9. Sebeok, T. A. 1966. Current Trends in Linguistics. The Netherlands: Mouton & Co.

10. Small, S., Cottrell, G., and Tanenhaus, M. 1988. Lexical Ambiguity Resolution: perspectives from psycholinguistics. United States of America: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. Inc.

11. Ullmann, S. 1972. Semantics. An Introduction to the Science of Mani. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

12. Yule, G. 2006. The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Internet sources

13. MultiLingual Dictionary. https://www.allwords.com

14. Cheshire coffee online [Electronic resource]. - Mode of access : http://english-coffee.com/showthread.php?t=108

15. Polysemy, homonymy and reference. www.res-per-nomen.org/respernomen/pubs/ling/SEM02

16. Latin, ad nauseam. Lingua Franca. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/linguafranca/stories/2009/2596385.htm

17. Books online. www.linguists.org.cn/doc/su200607/su2006071.pdf

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