英文岐义的利与弊

Positive and Negative Aspects of Ambiguity

岐义是每种语言中都常见的现象,英语也不例外。其类型有音位岐义、词汇岐义、语法/句法岐义、语用岐义及语言变体岐义等等。在实际生活中,岐义有利又有弊:利在它可以丰富人们的表达,起到幽默、委婉、讥讽等绝妙效果;弊在它会引起误解、闹出笑话、甚至会严重到引起国际争端的地步。因此,如何消除岐义、变弊为利是大家所关心的。本文从调整语序、明确修饰限定范围、增添上下文等七个方面阐述了消除岐义的常见方法。

Ambiguity is a common phenomenon in every language, and English is no exception. We have phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, grammatical/syntactic ambiguity and pragmatic ambiguity, etc. With ambiguity, we can enrich the power of our expression and achieve the effect of humor, euphemism and satire and we may also get misunderstanding, disgrace in public, and even international disputes. Thus, we should know more about ambiguity and remove ambiguity when being proved negative in the following ways： rearranging word order, clarifying the range of modifiers, adding enough context, etc.