What is AMBIGUITY??
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Ambiguity is the presence of two or more possible meaning in a single passage.
A word, phrase, or sentence is ambiguous if it has more than one possible meaning. In other word, a word, phrase, or sentence that has only one meaning is not ambiguous. Example of ambiguity:
A word, phrase, or sentence is ambiguous if it has more than one possible meaning. In other word, a word, phrase, or sentence that has only one meaning is not ambiguous. Example of ambiguity:
1. Each of us saw her duck .
Ambiguity: It is not clear whether the word “duck” refers
to an action of ducking or a duck that is a bird.
2. I have never tasted a cake quite
like that one before!
Ambiguity: Was the cake good or bad?
There are three types of ambiguity:
1. Semantic Ambiguity (Usually an Idiom)
2. Structural or Syntactic ambiguity (When a
headline may have more than one alternative structure and ambivalent structure)
3. Lexical Ambiguity (A word or phrase that
has more than one meaning while it stands in a sentence).
SEMANTICAL AMBIGUITY EXAMPLE AND
ANALYZING
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1
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Headline
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I wanna see John.
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Ambiguity type
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Semantic Ambiguity
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Identification and explanation
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The word of “John” can be
interpreted as someone name or toilet. If it is interpreted as toiled, it
means that the sentence I want to see John is a polite expression that
someone wants to go to a toilet. Meanwhile if it is interpreted as someone
name, it means that he want to meet someone named John.
Actually, “I wanna see John” is an
idiom that is used to express a polite request to go to toilet.
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What makes headline humorous
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The sentence can be easily
interpreted that someone wants to meet someone named John. But, it is
actually an idiom that is interpreted as polite request to go to toilet.
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2
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Headline
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You lose your job? Look on the
bright side; you will have more free time.
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Ambiguity type
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Semantic Ambiguity
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Identification and explanation
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“Look on the bright side” is an
idiom that is interpreted as thinking something positive when we got a trouble
or problem. Meanwhile if it is not interpreted as an idiom it will have
different meaning that is “looking at the bright side”.
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What makes headline humorous
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“Look on the bright side” maybe
can be easily interpreted as seeing a bright place by the reader. So it will
be interpreted by: “when you lost your job, just look the bright place that
you will have more free time”.
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3
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Headline
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John was given the ax two days
before New Year.
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Ambiguity type
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Semantic Ambiguity
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Identification and explanation
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John can be interpreted as someone
name or a toilet, meanwhile the meaning of “given the ax” is actually someone
gets fired on a job instead an ax is given to someone.
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What makes headline humorous
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If the word of “John” is
interpreted as Toilet it will be, Toilet is faired two days before New Year.
Meanwhile, toilet is unanimated thing, so it is impossible that toilet has a job,
or a toilet is given an ax two days before New Year.
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4
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Headline
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Will you give me my new laptop?
When pig fly!
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Ambiguity type
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Semantic Ambiguity
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Identification and explanation
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“When pig fly” is an idiom that has
a meaning as “never”, instead “when pig can fly”
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What makes headline humorous
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The real meaning of it is “never”
rather than pig can fly, pig has no wings, so it will never be able to fly.
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5
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Headline
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Something went wrong with my neighbor’s
car alarm system, and the alarm wouldn’t stop ringing all night.
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Ambiguity type
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Semantic ambiguity
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Identification and explanation
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“Went wrong” is an idiom that
easily interpreted as a mistake. It means that there is something wrong or
trouble in something.
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What makes headline humorous
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–
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6
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Headline
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The judge threw the book at Matt
for stealing a football from the store. He’ll be going to jail for six
months.
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Ambiguity type
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Semantic Ambiguity
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Identification and explanation
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“The Judge threw the book at Matt”
is also an idiom that is interpreted by “giving Matt a punishment” instead
threw a book to Matt.
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What makes headline humorous
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This sentence can be easily read
by “the judge is throwing a book to Matt, rather than the Judge punishes Matt
because of his mistake”. So it means that the judge will be in the jail for six
months. And impossible that the judge will be in the jail for six months.
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7
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Headline
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Please stop chewing gum so loudly.
It’s driving me crazy!
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Ambiguity type
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Semantic Ambiguity
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Identification and explanation
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The idiom of “it’s driving me
crazy” is interpreted by “annoying someone very much” instead “a gum is
chewed”
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What makes headline humorous
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It’s something impossible that
chewing gum can make someone becomes crazy.
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8
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Headline
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You’d better break the news to
your father carefully.
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Ambiguity type
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Semantic Ambiguity
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Identification and explanation
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“Break the news” is also an idiom.
It is interpreted by “making something known” instead “to break or crush
news”
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What makes headline humorous
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It may easily be read not as an
idiom. Therefore it will be that the subject “you” wants to break news.
Meanwhile, news is abstract thing, so it cannot be broken.
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9
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Headline
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Frank’s new business failed, so he
had to go back to the drawing board.
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Ambiguity type
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Semantic Ambiguity
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Identification and explanation
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“Go back to the drawing board” is
also an idiom, it express that something must start again from the beginning because
of failure instead approaching drawing board.
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What makes headline humorous
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It can be easily interpreted that
“go back to drawing board” is “someone approaches drawing board”. So, if someone
got failure in job, he or she just finds a drawing board to solve his/ her
problem.
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10
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Headline
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George is really poor. He lives
from hand to mouth.
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Ambiguity type
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Semantic Ambiguity
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Identification and explanation
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“Live from hand to mouth” is an
idiom that is used to express that someone barely has enough money to
survive.
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What makes headline humorous
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–
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Okay, I wish my explanation you can get a point. Thank you and see you in the next blog , Readers!!
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