语用功能看英语语言中的歧义现象

1 分类号分类号 密密 级级 毕毕 业业 论论 文文 题题 目目 从语用功能看英语从语用功能看英语 语言中的歧义现象语言中的歧义现象 系系 别别 外语系 专业年级专业年级 英语 2012 级 姓姓 名名 梁 慧 学学 号号 20120302105 指导教师指导教师 郭焕平 硕 士 20162016 年年 0303 月月 2121 日日 LULIANG UNIVERSITY 2 A Study on English Ambiguity from Pragmatic Perspective A Graduation Thesis Submitted by Liang Hui In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For The Degree of Bachelor of Arts In the Subject of English Linguistics To Department of Foreign Languages Of Luliang University Supervisor Guo Huanping March 21 2016 3 原原 创创 性性 声声 明明 本人郑重声明 本人所呈交的毕业论文 是在指导老师的指导下独立进行研究所 取得的成果 毕业论文中凡引用他人已经发表或未发表的成果 数据 观点等 均已 明确注明出处 除文中已经注明引用的内容外 不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表 或撰写过的科研成果 对本文的研究成果做出重要贡献的个人和集体 均已在文中以 明确方式标明 本声明的法律责任由本人承担 论文作者签名 日 期 4 关于毕业论文使用授权的声明关于毕业论文使用授权的声明 本人在指导老师指导下所完成的论文及相关的资料 包括图纸 试验记录 原始 数据 实物照片 图片 录音带 设计手稿等 知识产权归属吕梁学院 本人完全 了解吕梁学院有关保存 使用毕业论文的规定 同意学校保存或向国家有关部门或机 构送交论文的纸质版和电子版 允许论文被查阅和借阅 本人授权吕梁学院可以将本 毕业论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索 可以采用任何复制手段保存和 汇编本毕业论文 如果发表相关成果 一定征得指导教师同意 且第一署名单位为吕 梁学院 本人离校后使用毕业论文或与该论文直接相关的学术论文或成果时 第一署 名单位仍然为吕梁学院 论文作者签名 日 期 指导老师签名 日 期 5 摘摘 要要 我们处在一个信息大爆炸的时代 电子阅读和传统阅读充斥着我们的生活 而英 语是国际交流最广泛的一种语言手段 这就要求我们必须成为一个高素养的英语学习 者 能够理解英语文章 从而与国际接轨 歧义是语言中普遍存在的一种现象 英语 语言中也存在歧义现象 而且 英语歧义会阻碍我们接收以英语为载体的大量国际信 息 因此了解英语歧义现象是势在必行的 本文运用文献研究法 经验总结法 比较 分析法 首先总结了语言层面的歧义 其次着重研究了语用歧义的分类及涵义 即在 前人的研究基础上将歧义与语用功能结合起来 将歧义放在实际层面 通过研究学习 得知语用歧义也可以发挥积极作用 因此 全面掌握歧义的优缺点 可以提高我们的 语言理解和语言运用能力 从而使我们具备快速浏览英文信息的能力 关键词关键词 英语 语用歧义 积极作用 6 Abstract We are living in an information era when electronic reading and traditional reading are filled with our life And English is the most popular language means used in international communication which requires that we should become high quality English learners to be able to understand English articles and act on international convention Ambiguity is a phenomenon generally existing in language and English also has ambiguity phenomenon What s more English ambiguity can make it difficult for us to receive a great deal of international information Therefore learning English ambiguity is imperative This paper first summarizes linguistic ambiguity in English and then mainly studies the types and connotation of pragmatic ambiguity by using literature research method experiential summary method and comparative analysis method That is to say on the basis of previous study this paper combines ambiguity and pragmatics which puts ambiguity on the actual application level Through research learning we know pragmatic ambiguity can also play a positive role So mastering advantages and disadvantages of ambiguity roundly helps to improve our verbal comprehension and verbal skill so that we can have the ability to quickly browse information Key Words English pragmatic ambiguity positive role 7 Contents 1 Introduction 1 1 1Basic information 1 1 2 Methods and significance of the study 1 2 Linguistic ambiguity in English 2 2 1 Phonetic ambiguity 2 2 2Lexical ambiguity 3 2 3Grammatical ambiguity 3 2 4Semantic structure ambiguity 3 3 Pragmatic ambiguity and its significance 3 3 1Owerview of pragmatic ambiguity 4 3 2Types of pragmatic ambiguity 5 3 2 1Speech act ambiguity 5 3 2 2Discourse ambiguity 5 3 2 3Deixis ambiguity 6 3 2 4Implicature ambiguity 7 3 3Positive functions of pragmatic ambiguity 8 3 3 1Aesthetic effect 8 3 3 2Propaganda function 8 3 3 3Humor function 8 3 3 4Changing the subject to adjust the mood 8 3 3 5Inspiration imagination 8 4 Conclusion 8 Bibliography 10 Acknowledgements 11 1 1 Introduction Pragmatics emphasizes the proper expression and accurate understanding of discourse meaning in different contexts and seeks and establishes the fundamental principles and criteria which make the utterance meaning be expressed properly and understood accurately By contrast ambiguity means that a certain kind of language structure maintains more than one meanings However the previous study just involves phonetic ambiguity lexical ambiguity grammatical ambiguity and semantic structure ambiguity which is static Pragmatic ambiguity puts the ambiguity study on the dynamic level which improves our comprehension abilities of language using in actual life 1 1Basic information Ambiguity as a phenomenon generally existing in language illustrates the special relationship between the structure of language form and its inherent meaning If one structure of language form has more than one meaning this structure is ambiguous English also has ambiguity phenomenon Ambiguity study of western countries originated from speculative thought of ancient Greek philosophy Then ambiguity is studied from its internal factors such as phonetic ambiguity lexical ambiguity grammatical ambiguity and semantic structure ambiguity which just lingers on the theoretical level and puts the emphasis on its negative influence With the development of linguistics the further study on ambiguity and the emergence and flourishing of pragmatics in the1960s the ambiguity in the process of using language began to be studied That is to say pragmatic ambiguity study came into being while pragmatic ambiguity study in our country appeared in the early 1980s and further developed in the late 1980s And now it flourishes Pragmatic ambiguity study underlines the ambiguity on the practical level which is dynamic and stresses its functions from a positive perspective 1 2 Methods and significance of the study There are three main study methods in my thesis literature research method experiential summary method and comparative analysis method On the basis of previous study this paper not only summarizes the phonetic ambiguity lexical ambiguity grammatical ambiguity and semantic structure ambiguity but also further studies the theories of pragmatics ambiguity even pragmatic ambiguity and its functions This paper combines 2 ambiguity and pragmatics which puts ambiguity on the actual application level to have a good knowledge of ambiguity phenomenon It also emphasizes the positive influences of ambiguity in the process of use Further study of pragmatic Ambiguity helps us to improve our verbal comprehension and verbal skill so that we can be high quality English learners in future because in this way we can remove some language obstacles for English learners and improve their abilities of language learning and using 2 Linguistic ambiguity in English The types of linguistic ambiguity include phonetic ambiguity lexical ambiguity grammatical ambiguity and semantic structure ambiguity Linguistic ambiguity is on the language description level which is ambiguity s internal factors Linguistic ambiguity is the foundation of ambiguity study to a certain extent 2 1 Phonetic ambiguity Phonetic ambiguity means that listeners have multiple understanding of speakers words as a result of homophone homonym or liaison schwa and stress in our spoken language The examples are as follows Eg1 A When does the baker follow his trade B Whenever he kneads the dough Knead means 揉面 need means 需要 dough means 生面 钱 So sentence B has two meanings 面包师需要钱时就开始了生意 面包师揉面时就 开始了生意 There are also such pairs as sow and sew right and wright meat and meet dear and deer flour and flower Eg2 It s hard for listeners to distinguish a nice man And an ice man or I scream and ice cream or a name and an aim because of liaison Eg3 That s all I know a That s all I know 那是我知道的一切 说明我就知道那些 b That s all I know 也许还有其它什么事 但这是我知道的一切 c That s all I know 那是我所知道的一切 d That s all I know 那是我知道的一切 其他人也许知道得更多 3 2 2Lexical ambiguity Lexical ambiguity refers to that people hold different understanding toward one sentence due to their different understanding of a certain word in the sentence There are some example Eg1 Where is the button a 扣子在哪里 B 开关在哪里 Eg2 I saw her duck a 我看见了她的鸭子 B 我看见她潜入水中 2 3Grammatical ambiguity If one sentence can be explained through two or more kinds of grammatical structure analyses which lead to different understanding of the sentence it is called grammatical ambiguity Eg1 The dog is ready to eat a The dog is ready to eat something b The dog is ready for people to eat Eg2 Tell me if you come a Tell me whether you1 will come b If you come please tell me earlier 2 4Semantic structure ambiguity According to Chomsky s theory of transformational grammar Chomsky put forward the idea of two levels of syntactic structure deep structure and surface structure If the surface structure of a sentence has more than one deep structure in the same time the sentence is ambiguous The following are some cases Eg1 He is the best man to choose a He is the best man to do the choosing b He is the best man that we can choose Eg2 No work will kill him a Any work will not kill him b Doing no work will kill him 3 Pragmatic ambiguity and its significance In order to further research the ambiguity we can t omit pragmatic ambiguity There is 4 no doubt that pragmatic ambiguity must be closely related to pragmatics and must be studied in the scope of pragmatics Pragmatics refers to that speakers express utterance which owns two or more illocutionary act implications in specific environment or context It studies ambiguity in use Compared with linguistic ambiguity in chapter2 pragmatic ambiguity is rarely researched by language learners And ambiguity is used to being regarded as morbidity In this chapter we mainly study pragmatic ambiguity and its positive impacts 3 1Owerview of pragmatic ambiguity Besides the linguistic ambiguity there is also another kind of ambiguity called pragmatic ambiguity Pragmatic ambiguity occurs in a given context in communicative activities It has nothing to do with the linguistic features Therefore it is also called context ambiguity And context ambiguity can be divided into situational context cultural context and cognitive context which is defined as non linguistic context Situational context example is the knowledge related with reading material The knowledge exists outside the text but is still crucially important for the understanding of text and language study In the current practice of reading instruction emphasizing the implication influence of situational context on the discourse is very useful By the control of situational context listeners and speakers can understand the words correctly Take the word power for example In different scopes of the research power has different meanings The following are examples I will give you all the help within my power life terms 我会尽力帮助你的 Which political party is in power now Political language 目前哪一个政党是执政党 What is the power of this engine Physical language 这台发动机的功率有多大 Cultural context refers to the social culture background which is related with the verbal communication It has two sides cultural custom that people inherit and develop life modes from age to age in social life is a kind of collective habit of social mass in language behavior and mentality which can restrain and standardise people who belong to this collective The other is social regulation which means various criteria and regulation of society to language communicative activities Some examples of cultural context In American English the first floor means 一楼 while in British English the ground floor means 一楼 Once upon a time an English boy went to America and he asked a waiter 5 in a restaurant where the toilet was when he wanted to go to stool The waiter told him the first floor Then the English boy went to the second floor Cognitive context is different from the contexts above The source of context is objective reality However context is not directly mechanically determined by objective reality Through cognitive activities human s various needs are related to the outer world Cognitive context is a building in the process of communication which is a kind of context effect produced by the stimulation of speech or context People having different cognition will understand speech differently For example the sentence He specialized in selling old and valuable books can be understood as old but valuable books or old books and valuable books If the listener is a person who specially goes to secondhand book market to select some valuable books with the influence of psychological expectation he will understand the sentence in the first way 3 2Types of pragmatic ambiguity Next we will discuss pragmatic ambiguity more carefully Pragmatic ambiguity maintains speech act ambiguity discourse ambiguity deixis ambiguity and implicature ambiguity Knowing the types of pragmatic ambiguity we can distinguish ambiguity right so that we can master and use it as a positive tool 3 2 1Speech act ambiguity Indirect speech act theory was firstly put forward by semantic philosopher Searle in1969 It means that a type of illocutionary act is indirectly realized through the expression of another illocutionary act Understand literal force firstly then infer its indirect implication according to literal force Look at the corresponding examples Eg1 Can you reach the salt Its literal force is inquiry but in fact it doesn t want to inquire the listener whether he has the ability to do so The listener must infer the indirect pragmatic meaning request through its literal force Eg2 There is a wolf in the mountain My recorder has been broken by someone The two sentences are statements in the discourse Both of their literal force are statements but their indirect implication may differ with the change of context The first sentence may be warning or frightening while the second sentence may be complaining or apology 3 2 2Discourse ambiguity The continuous discourse made up of some words no matter a dialogue or an article is an integral whole which is usually consistent and smooth representing some 6 intention Lexical connector referential ties ellipsis consistency of perspective and wording belonging of the speaker and listener and information structure are all the means that make the discourse smooth and consistent One structure form may have different discourse analyses so that ambiguity appears There are some common types of discourse ambiguity a Referential ties 1 Bill told his cousin that he should visit him before he left for Boston In this sentence we don t identify who would go to Boston 2 Jane watched Julia walk into the library with her brother In this sentence we don t know the brother referred to whose brother Jane s or Julia s b Consistency of perspective and word belonging of speaker and listener A discourse usually consists of two people speaker and listener Difference between the two persons may trigger ambiguity Example A Did you have any luck hunting tigers in India B Marvellous luck Didn t come across a single tiger In sentence A luck means finding tiger and hunting it while luck means that no encounter with a tiger is safe because tiger is fierce Now that the two persons hold different views they endow the same word luck with distinct meanings c Information structure If a discourse doesn t have a fixed issue or applies to two or more issues the ambiguity will arise Example Teacher Give me a sentence containing an object Student Yes ma ma You are very beautiful Teacher That s a sentence but what s the object Student A good mark For the teacher object means 宾语 while the student translates object as 目标 目 的 The teacher let student find out the object while student tells teacher that his aim is to please teacher to get a good score d Ellipsis Sometimes difference between ellipsis structure and its meaning may lead to ambiguity Example He loves his dog more than his children This sentence can be translated into He loves his dog more than he loves his children or He loves his dog more than his children love his dog 3 2 3Deixis ambiguity When we speak we must contain time place person identity utterance and so on and 7 the language structure used to express them is called deixis In English these words and grammatical category include personal pronoun demonstrative pronoun definite article adverb of time and adverb of place Indicating information of discourse is the key to understanding and expression Misunderstanding of indicating information may cause ambiguity Then I will cite several examples of deixis ambiguity 1 As a freshman at a university I failed to catch the details of a particular assignment in interpersonal class So I asked the student next to me When is it due July she answered patting her pregnant belly In When is it due it means the assignment arranged by the teacher while the answerer understands it as fetus in her belly 2 When the woman next door gave birth her husband phoned his mother in law with the good news We have twins he told her The phone connection was bad and she didn t hear him clearly Could you repeat that she shouted I doubt it answered the new father sounding startled In fact I m surprised it happened the first time For the wife s mother she used that to replace the words said by the son in law while the son in law while the son in law understood that as the fact that his wife gave birth to twins 3 2 4Implicature ambiguity In speech communications the meaning of the sentence in itself is distinct from the pragmatic meaning that the speaker use this sentence to express This pragmatic meaning is what we usually call conversational implicature It is an important research part of pragmatics and it offers some crucial pragmatic explanations to language facts Pragmatic implicature doesn t explain how many kinds of meanings a same word has but explains a word or discourse meanwhile maintains how many possible speaker meanings that is illocutionary acts endowed by the speaker s saying the word Eg1 Is that your coat on the floor In form the sentence is a general question that requests listener to provide information In fact the speaker criticizes that the listener shouldn t put the coat on the floor and meanwhile let the speaker pick up the coat Eg2 Waiter there s a fly in my soup This sentence seems to be an assertive statement expressing remarks on the fact In 8 reality the speaker not only states a fact but also has the intention of complaining and instruction Pragmatics tells us successful communication not