A Tentative Analysis Of Ambiguity In Social Interaction

This thesis expounds ambiguity in social interaction. Since interpersonal -communication is dynamic and interactive under certain social contexts, it is insufficient to analyze ambiguity in its traditional aspects. Social contexts have to be taken into account. What's more, ambiguity is considered much more in its negative sides than positive ones. However, intentional ambiguity sometimes leads to humorous effects. On the other hand, during the teaching process, the author observed that ambiguity baffled students a lot especially in listening practice. The author tries to investigate ambiguity and its positive effects from sociolinguistic and pragmatic perspectives by using the speech act theory, the theory of adaptation, the prototype theory and fuzzy linguistics in different social contexts.Chapter one focuses on the related works on ambiguity. To begin with, the author presents linguistic researches, which include phonetic ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, grammatic ambiguity and syntactic ambiguity, and non-linguistic ambiguity in these branches such as philosophy, literature, psychology and computer science. Then the author presents the related theories which are to be adopted in the following chapters.Chapter two attempts to introduce the correlation between ambiguity and vagueness, and then reclassifies ambiguity into two groups, intentional ambiguity and unintentional ambiguity, each group including potential ambiguity and actual ambiguity respectively.In chapter three, for the purpose of making a deep insight into ambiguity, the author explores ambiguity in different social contexts, which involve shared knowledge, cultural knowledge, social institutions, registered and dialects, and language varieties.Chapter four focuses on the positive effects of ambiguity. For a long time, ambiguity has been generally focused on in its negative sides. By skillfully handled, it in many cases achieves some humorous and unexpected effects when speakers intend what they say to be ambiguous in interpersonal interaction, in literature and especially in ads. Advertisements play a great part in promoting new products. Since it is costly to advertise and ads are not easily attracted, advertisers rack their brains to make their ads both eye-catching and expenditure-saving. So the tactful use of language counts. If skillfully used, ambiguity will help achieve unexpected effects in advertising.Chapter five is the conclusion of the thesis. It shows that language learning is not just the process of word learning; learners should have a good command of the relevant knowledge involving social culture, social customs and social institutions. Only in this way can learners acquire the language successfully.