英语歧义的语用研究英语论文(1)

本科生毕业论文册学院 XXX学院专业英语翻译班级 XXXXX机器翻译班学生 XXX指导教师 XXX XXXX大学本科毕业论文（设计）任务书编号：论文（设计）题目：英语歧义的语用研究学院： XXX学院专业：英语翻译班级： XXXX机器翻译班学生姓名： XXX 学号： XXXXX 指导教师： XXX 职称：副教授1、论文（设计）研究目标及主要任务本论文的研究目标是从语用学的角度探讨英语歧义的形成原因及其在交际中的应用。

其主要任务是通过分析英语歧义的形成原因指导其在交际中的运用。

2、论文（设计）的主要内容本论文分为三章，第一章从合作原则和会话准则的角度分析英语歧义的产生原因，第二章从言语行为理论的角度分析英语歧义的产生原因，最后一章讨论了英语歧义的应用。

3、论文（设计）的基础条件及研究路线本论文的基础条件是不同的语言学家对语用歧义的研究结果。

研究路线是对英语歧义的产生原因从不同的因素角度进行详细的阐述，并将其分别应用在日常生活交际中。

4、主要参考文献Hu, Zhuanglin.2006. Linguistics: A Course Book (3rd edition). Beijing: Peking University Press. J. L. Austin. How to Do Things with Words. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2002.Leech, G. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. New York: Longman Inc.何兆熊，《新编语用学概要》. 上海:上海外语外语教育出版社, 2000.邱述德，《英语歧义》. 北京:商务印书馆, 1998.指导教师：年月日教研室主任：年月日注：一式三份，学院（系）、指导教师、学生各一份XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）开题报告书XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）评议书XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）文献综述本科生毕业论文册题目英语歧义的语用分析学院 XXX学院专业英语机器翻译专业班级 XXX机器翻译班学生 XXX指导教师 XXX完成日期 XXX 年 5 月 8 日Pragmatic Analysis of Ambiguity in EnglishBYXXXXProf. Fu Xiaoli, TutorA Thesis Submitted to Department of EnglishLanguage and Literature in PartialFulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of B.A. in EnglishAt XXXX UniversityMay 8th,XXXAbstractAmbiguity is a phenomenon that often appears in language use. Ambiguity includes phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, grammatical ambiguity and so on. In recent years, the research of ambiguity goes deeper and deeper, besides the static study in linguistic level, the dynamic study has also begun, and that is pragmatic study of ambiguity. Pragmatic ambiguity refers to the phenomenon that speakers use unsure, ambiguous or indirect utterance to express several illocutionary acts or illocutionary forces to hearers in a specific context or text. At present, this field needs further research. This thesis analyzes the phenomenon of ambiguity from the pragmatic perspective under the guidance of cooperative principle, conversational implicature and speech act theory and gives a generalization of different forming factors of pragmatic ambiguity. Pragmatic ambiguity often brings inconvenience to communication, but if it is properly used, it will have special effects, such as leading to special overtones, producing humor, avoiding conflicts and so on. Combining principles with a lot of examples, the thesis will give a detailed analysis of the forming factors and applications of ambiguity in terms of pragmatics.Key words pragmatic ambiguity forming factors applications摘要歧义是语言使用中经常出现的现象，包括语音歧义，词汇歧义，语法歧义等。

近年来，对歧义的研究不断深入，除了语言平面的静态研究，也开始了对歧义的动态研究，即在语用学范围内对歧义进行研究。

语用歧义指说话人在特定语境或上下文中使用不确定的、模糊的或间接的话语向听话人同时表达数种言外行为或言外之力的现象。

目前，此类研究仍需进一步深入，本文主要从语用学的角度运用合作原则、会话准则和言语行为理论对歧义现象加以分析，对语用歧义的产生原因进行了归纳。

语用歧义通常会给交流带来不便，但如果使用得当，巧妙利用语用歧义，则可以在交际中发挥奇特的作用，例如表达言外之意，产生幽默效果，避免冲突等。

本文将原理和大量例句相结合，从语用学的角度对歧义的产生原因及其应用进行了详细的分析。

关键词语用歧义产生原因应用Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction (7)Chapter 2 Literature Review (11)Chapter 3 Cooperative Principle and Grice’s Conversation Maxims (14)3.1 Essential concepts (14)3.1.1 Meaning (14)3.1.2 Context (15)3.2 Theoretical contribution (17)3.2.1 The Conversational Implicature (17)3.2.2 Cooperative Principle and Grice’s Conversation Maxims (18)3.3 Implicature ambiguity (18)Chapter 4 Speech Act Theory (21)4.1 Introduction (21)4.2 Speech Act Theory (21)4.3 Speech act ambiguity (22)4.4 Summary (25)Chapter 5 Applications of Pragmatic Ambiguity (26)5.1 Introduction (26)5.2 To lead to special overtones (26)5.3 To avoid conflicts (27)5.4 To produce humor (28)5.5 Summary (29)Chapter 6 Conclusion (30)References (31)Chapter 1 IntroductionAmbiguity may occur when an utterance can be understood in two or more distinct senses. Am biguity is an intrinsic phenomenon in English language. There are several types of ambiguity, such as phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity and grammatical ambiguity. In recent years, the research of ambiguity goes deeper and deeper, besides the static study in linguistic level, the dynamic study has also begun, and that is pragmatic study of ambiguity. And the focus of this paper is to present the pragmatic analysis of ambiguity with the concepts of meaning and context, as well as the theories of the Conversational Implicature, the Cooperative Principle, Grice’s Conversation Maxims and Speech Act Theory. Ambiguity often appears in our conversation, in the speech or even in the writing. Pragmatic ambiguity refers to the phenomenon that speakers use unsure, ambiguous or indirect utterance to express several illocutionary acts or illocutionary forces to hearers in a specific context or text.Pragmatic ambiguity arises when the statement is not specific, and the context does not provide enough information needed to clarify the statement (Walton 1996). Information is missing, and must be inferred. An example of pragmatic ambiguity is the story of King Croesus and the Oracle of Delphi (adapted from Copi and Cohen 1990):“King Croesus consulted the Oracle of Delphi before warring with Cyrus of Persia.The Oracle replied that, if Croesus went to war with Cyrus, he would destroy a mighty kingdom. Delighted, Croesus attacked Persia, and Croesus’ army and kingdom were crushed. Croesus complained bitterly to the Oracle’s priests, who replied that the Oracle had been entirely right. By going to war with Persia, Croesus had destroyed a mighty kingdom – his o wn.”The information necessary to clearly understand the message is omitted. Due to the need to infer the missing information, pragmatically ambiguous statements have multiple possible interpretations (Walton 1996). Croesus interpreted the Oracle’s statem ent as indicating his success in battle – the response he desired. As noted by Hamblin (1970), Croesus’ logical response to the oracular reply would have been to immediately ask the Oracle, "Which kingdom?" Further information is needed to resolve pragmatic ambiguity.In the case of an information request, pragmatic ambiguity exists in the request for “A report of all the clients for a department.” The ambiguity is that the request does not refer to a specific department. The end user could legitimately prepare a report for any department. Furtherinformation is needed to resolve this actual ambiguity in this case.Pragmatic ambiguities are born when the communication happens between two agents who do not share the same context. We imagine receiving a telephone call from a friend far away, even living in a different continent:“I will arrive to the airport at 12 o'clock.”In this case, speaker and listener, because of different jet lags, do not share the same context and probably one of them will wait in the airport for various hours. I'm going to show one more example. Suppose someone tells us:“Outside is very warm.”The information that we can learn from this phrase is complete only if we know who has pronounced it and his concept of “warmth”. A n Eskimo, as an example, pronouncing a phrase of the sort could let us know that outside it is 3 or 4 degrees! This means it is important the hearer knows or could suppose as much as possible about the speaker and his knowledge (say world model).There are several types of pragmatic ambiguity in terms of their different forming factors, such as discourse ambiguity, implicature ambiguity and speech act ambiguity. No matter what the forming factor is, ambiguity lies in the difference of meaning. Speech communication takes place between at least two participants—a speaker and a hearer. Linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt said in 18th century that language is infinite use of finite means and it is a creative activity (Robin, 1987). Pragmatic ambiguity is a phenomenon that arises from communication activity. There are two forming conditions of pragmatic ambiguity:First, the speaker use unsure or indirect utterance, which makes the hearer have two or more than two understandings. For example,(1) Lawyers to Offer Poor Free AdviceThis is a news title, whose author takes advantage of unsure elements deliberately to create ambiguity. In terms of different pauses, there are two different understandings:a、Lawyers to Offer (the) Poor (pause) Free Advice.It means lawyers offer free advice to the poor;b、Lawyers to Offer (pause) Poor Free Advice.It means lawyers offer free but poor advice.The author deliberately took advantage of ambiguity to combine the two meanings together which has the effect of pun.Second, although the speaker’s utterance is quite clear, the hearer has some kind of intention or is affected by context, thus producing different understandings, for instance,(2) Judge: Guilty! I’ll give you ten days or twenty dollars.Prisoner: I’ll take the twenty dollars, judge.Here the meaning of the judge’s utterance is either staying in prison for ten days or fining twenty dollars. But the criminal thinks that the judge either gives him ten days, or gives him twenty dollars. Obviously ambiguity occurs because of the hearer’s different understandings.In terms of pragmatics, there are two factors finally leading to ambiguity: first, context; second, speaker and hearer. In communication, because of the constraint of context, polysemy in semantics usually does not lead to pragmatic ambiguity. But there are also cases that different meanings can be figured out in a particular context, thus ambiguity occurs.Usually ambiguity has the negative effect of blocking language communication, so two participants should follow the Cooperative Principle and Conversational Maxims which includes the maxim of quality, maxim of quantity, maxim of relevance and maxim of manner put up by linguist H·P Grice in language communication, and try their best to express and understand the true meaning of their utterance, avoiding the occurrence of ambiguity. However, in the actual use of language, people often take advantage of the contradiction in the internal language construction or ambiguous utterance to express specific intentions as well as achieve ideal pragmatic effects. For example, people take advantage of ambiguity to express the tone of euphemism or satire, to achieve the effects of pun and humor, or to make language live and glamorous. The thesis gives a pragmatic analysis of the positive effects of ambiguity in English and presents the clever use of ambiguity.For example, pun is the positive use of ambiguity. The speaker intends to expose the meaning and the hearer tries hard to guess the true meaning of the speaker’s utterance. The two participants both follow the Cooperative Principle, so they can create and understand the delicacy. For instance,(3) Waiter: What’s the matter?Customer: Nothing. Long time no see (sea)!This is a dialogue in a restaurant. The customer doubted whether the fish on the plate was fresh or not. When the waiter asked him: What’s the matter? The customer did not answer directly, instead he answered: “Nothing. Long time no see!” The literal meaning is that nothing is wrong, but he has not seen fish for a long time. See ( 看见) and sea( 海洋) are homonyms，so the utterance can also be understood as the complain about the losing freshness of the fish—the fish has left thesea for too long. The use of pun not only expresses the customer’s dissatisfaction towards the dish, but also avoids the embarrassment of direct criticism, which is an example of proper use of ambiguity.Ambiguity is a common phenomenon in speech communication. It can lead to misunderstandings of utterance and bring inconvenience to the language communication. So a good knowledge of the forming factors of ambiguity will benefit a lot to effective communication. Although ambiguity can produce negative effects to impede the talk exchange, it is deniable that it also can be used properly to achieve positive effects. In the language communication, people should try to avoid negative effects of ambiguity and take advantage of the positive effects that ambiguity may bring. The thesis gives a pragmatic analysis of the forming factors of ambiguity in English and presents several positive effects of ambiguity using linguistic principles and a lot of examples.Chapter 2 Literature ReviewThe study of pragmatic ambiguity has a long history. Ambiguity is a phenomenon that often appears in language use. Ambiguity includes phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, and grammatical ambiguity. In recent years, the research of ambiguity goes deeper and deeper, besides the static study in linguistic level, the dynamic study has also begun, and that is pragmatic study of ambiguity. Pragmatic ambiguity refers to the phenomenon that speakers use unsure, ambiguous or indirect utterance to express several illocutionary acts or illocutionary forces to hearers in a specific context or text. At present, this field needs further research. Pragmatic ambiguity arises when the statement is not specific, and the context does not provide enough information needed to clarify the statement (Walton, 1996). Information is missing, and must be inferred.All languages depend on words and sentences in constructing meaning. However, one of the fundamental facts about words and sentences is that many of them in our languages have more than one meaning. Linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt said in 18th century that language is infinite use of finite means and it is a creative activity (Robin, 1987). So ambiguity may occur when an utterance can be understood in two or more distinct senses. Kess and Hoppe even say in Ambiguity in Psycholinguistics, “Upon careful consideration, one cannot but be ama zed at the ubiquity in language.” English as a language has no exception to it. Since Ambiguity is not a new topic, a lot of researches have been made in this field. In the west, ambiguity can be traces back to the sophism of ancient Greek philosophy. However, previous researches are mainly concerned with phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity and grammatical ambiguity. But the word “pragmatics” was first put forward in 1930s by Charles Morris and the category of pragmatic ambiguity was not explored until the 1970s. So researches on pragmatic ambiguity are still insufficiently thorough, for example, its definition, characteristics, category, functions and understanding still need further study. Based upon the previous researches, I will further explore the forming factors of pragmatic ambiguity and talk about its applications.The notion of meaning is a very important idea in the field of semantics. G. Leech recognizes seven kinds of meaning in his book—semantics, which was first published in 1974. Leech (1981) put forwards three kinds of meanings according to Halliday’s systemic-functional perspective: conceptual meaning, associative meaning and thematic meaning. The associative meaning includes connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning and collocativemeaning.In the study of pragmatics, meaning and context are its two basic concepts. The meaning in pragmatics refers to the specific meaning in actual use in a particular context. Context is the environment in which speech communication takes place, which consists of a series of subjective and objective elements closely related to language communication. Elements of context include the utterance itself, the behavior environment and situation where speech act happens, common sense and the relationship between communication participants.The theory of conversational implicature was proposed by an Oxford philosopher Herbert Paul Grice. In real communication, the intention of the speaker is often not the literal meaning of what he says; the real intention implied in the words is called conversational impicature. Conversational implicature is a kind of implied meaning, which is deduced based on the conventional meaning of words as well as context, under the guidance of the Cooperative Principle and its maxims. From this perspective, implicature is comparable to illocutionary force in speech act theory because they are both related to the contextual side of meaning. The difference between these two theories is that they offer different mechanisms to explain the generation of contextual meaning. At the end of Grice’s “Logic and Convention”, he mentioned a variety of characteristics of implicature. (1) Calculability (2) Cancellability (3) Non-detachability (4) Non-conventionality. Grice also proposed the Cooperative Principle: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. To specify the Cooperative Principle further, Grice introduced four categories of maxims as follows: the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner.Oxford philosopher John Langshaw Austin published his Speech Act theory in How to do Things with Words. According to Austen, there are three senses in which saying something may be understood as doing something. They are the locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. The locutionary act is what linguists have been studying all along. The perlocutionary act involves many psychological and social factors, so it is difficult to study. So Speech Act theory is in fact a theory of the illocutionary act.Ambiguity sometimes causes misunderstandings, which are obstacles in communication. A lot of linguists think that ambiguity is negative, should be avoided. Contemporary American linguist H. P. Grice in his Cooperative Principle mentions avoiding ambiguity. But ambiguity is an internal phenomenon of language itself, and in the contexts or communicative situations, most of theambiguity phenomenon will be eliminated automatically (Kooij, 1974:4). Therefore, if ambiguity is properly made use of, it not only won't produce misunderstandings, but also can achieve a certain rhetorical effects and pragmatic purposes.This thesis analyzes the phenomenon of ambiguity from the pragmatic perspective under the guidance of cooperative principle; conversational implicature and speech act theory and gives a generalization of different forming factors of pragmatic ambiguity. Pragmatic ambiguity often brings inconvenience to communication, but if it is properly used, it will have special effects, such as leading to special overtones, producing humor, avoiding conflicts and so on. Combining principles with a lot of examples, the thesis will give a detailed analysis of the forming factors and applications of ambiguity in terms of pragmatics.Chapter 3 Cooperative Principle and Grice’s Conversation MaximsAmbiguity includes phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, and grammatical ambiguity and so on. In recent years, the research of ambiguity goes deeper and deeper, besides the static study in linguistic level, the dynamic study has also begun, and that is pragmatic study of ambiguity. This thesis analyzes the phenomenon of ambiguity from the pragmatic perspective under the guidance of Cooperative Principle and Conversational Maxims on the basis of meaning and concept.3.1 Essential conceptsThis part provides certain concepts for pragmatic analysis of ambiguity in English—concepts of meaning, context and pragmatic ambiguity. The following detailed analysis is based on those linguistic concepts.3.1.1 MeaningThe notion of meaning is a very important idea in the field of semantics. G. Leech recognizes seven kinds of meaning in his book—semantics, which was first published in 1974. Leech (1981) put forwards three kinds of meanings according to Halliday’s systemic-functional perspective: conceptual meaning, associative meaning and thematic meaning. The associative meaning includes connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning and collocative meaning.1. Conceptual meaning: logical, cognitive, or denotative content.2. Associative meaning(1) Connotative meaning: what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to.(2) Social meaning: what is communicated of the social circumstances of language use.(3) Affective meaning: what is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker/writer.(4) Reflected meaning: what is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression.(5) Collocative meaning: what is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word.3. Thematic meaning: what is communicated by the way in which the message in organized in terms of order and emphasis.Leech says that conceptual meaning is the central part. It is denotative because it is about the relationship between a word and the thing it refers to. In this sense, conceptual meaning overlaps with the concept of reference to a large extent. But “connotative”used in the second kind of meaning is different from that in philosophical discussions. Philosophers use connotation, contrary to denotation, to mean the properties of the object a word denotes. For instance, the denotation of human is any person such as Jack and Emily, and its connotation is “biped”, “rational”, “featherless”, etc. In Leech’s system, however, in daily conversation, connotative refers to some additional, particularly emotive meaning. For instance, the difference between statesman and politician is connotative because the former is commendatory and the latter is derogatory. This kind of meaning and the following four kinds are together known as associative meaning in the sense that an elementary associationist theory of mental connections is enough to explain their use. The thematic meaning is more peripheral since it is just decided by the word order in a sentence and their different prominence.Ambiguity is a special relationship between language construction and its meaning. Any type of ambiguity, no matter what the forming factor is, results from the ambiguity of meaning. There is no ambiguity without difference in meaning. So before figuring out what ambiguity is, it is better to have a good knowledge of connotation and denotation. Meaning is always under discussion in the field of linguistics. The early discussion lays great emphasis on meaning in linguistic system and conceptual meaning. Ogden an d Richard put up the theory of semantic triangle. Katz and Fodor’s componential analysis is the semantic description of meaning. With the increasing emphasis on language in use, the discussion of meaning in pragmatic perspective is emphasized. Grice (1975) distinguishes conventional meaning from unconventional meaning. Meaning is the systemic and conceptual meaning as well as meaning of the construction in actual use.From the above discussions, meaning should be a cline from the conceptual meaning to meaning in actual use, and it is a concept of different layers.3.1.2 ContextIn the study of pragmatics, meaning and context are its two basic concepts. The meaning inpragmatics refers to the specific meaning in actual use in a particular context. Context is the environment in which speech communication takes place, which consists of a series of subjective and objective elements closely related to language communication. Elements of context include the utterance itself, the behavior environment and situation where speech act happens, common sense and the relationship between communication participants.Not having the knowledge of context elements will lead to failure in understanding speech act forces. However, the lost of some context element will lead to ambiguity. For example,(1)What a day!It means what a nice day! Or what a terrible day!(2)Not much music entertained us.It means there is not much music that can entertain us. Or some music is enough to entertain us.The true meaning of these sentences can only be inferred according to the co-text and context.(3) Nothing is good enough for him.It means he is a sticky man. Or it is best for him to have nothing.(4) The love of God is everlasting.There are two understandings: The love of God towards human beings is everlasting. Or the love of human beings towards God is everlasting.However, lacking in particular context, it is hard to determine their real meaning. So it is easy to see that meaning depends on context and context has influence on meaning. Just as two sayings go,” No context, no text.”“You know a word by the company.”As is known to all, speech communication depends heavily on context. If two communication participants have the same or similar context elements, which means that they have common context, then communication can take place successfully. But two participants can have their own special understandings in addition to its literal meaning according to their different contexts, thus leading to double contexts for the same words and pragmatic ambiguity. For instance,(5)Why are lawyers all uneasy sleepers?Because they lie first on one side, then on the other, and awake all the time.In the sentence, lie can be translated as 躺or 撒谎, so one context is to explain why lawyers are hard to fall asleep, because they lie first on one side, and then on the other. The other context is that lawyers tell lies to both sides and have to keep awake to make his lies reliable. Here doublecontexts lead to pragmatic ambiguity, but achieve the effects of pun.(6) A professor tapped on his desk and shouted: Gentlemen, order!The entire class yelled: Beer!Order has two meanings: one is quiet, the other is ordering goods. The speaker has his own context: asking students to obey the rules and calm down; the hearers have their own contexts: misunderstanding the utterance of their professor. Since you want us to order goods, we will order beer. The humorous effect of the famous joke is achieved by pragmatic ambiguity resulting from double contexts.3.2 Theoretical contributionThis part provides certain theories concerned with pragmatic analysis of ambiguity in English-—The Conversational Implicature, Cooperative Principle and Grice’s Conversat ion Maxims and Speech Act Theory. The following detailed analysis is based on those linguistic theories.3.2.1 The Conversational ImplicatureIn real communication, the intention of the speaker is often not the literal meaning of what he says; the real intention implied in the words is called conversational impicature. Conversational implicature is a kind of implied meaning, which is deduced based on the conventional meaning of words as well as context, under the guidance of the Cooperative Principle and its maxims. From this perspective, implicature is comparable to illocutionary force in speech act theory because they are both related to the contextual side of meaning. The difference between these two theories is that they offer different mechanisms to explain the generation of contextual meaning.At the end of Grice’s “Logic and Convention”, he mentioned a variety of characteristics of implicature.(1) Calculability(2) Cancellability(3) Non-detachability(4) Non-conventionality3.2.2 Cooperative Pri nciple and Grice’s Conversation MaximsThe Cooperative Principle is proposed by the philosopher and logician Herbert Paul Grice to explain the course of natural conversation, in which implicated messages are frequently involved. His idea is that in making a conversation, the participants must first of all be willing to cooperate; otherwise, it would not be possible for them to carry on the talk. The general principle goes as follows: “Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage a t which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.”To specify the Cooperative Principle further, Grice introduced four categories of maxims as follows:The Maxim of Quantity(1)Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of theexchange).(2)Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.The Maxim of QualityTry to make your contribution one that is true.(1)Do not say what you believe to be false.(2)Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.The Maxim of RelationBe relevant.The Maxim of MannerBe perspicuous.(1)Avoid obscurity of expression.(2)Avoid ambiguity.(3)Be brief (avoid prolixity).(4)Be orderly.3.3 Implicature ambiguityIn real communication, the intention of the speaker is often not the literal meaning of what he or she says, the real intention implied in the words is called conversational implicature, which is a universal phenomenon in daily life. Cooperation is the fundamental basis of smooth communication.。