A Study On Pragmatic Ambiguity: Interpretation, Restriction And Utilization

Ambiguity exists everywhere. It could occur at all levels of linguistics, such as phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity and pragmatic ambiguity. If ambiguity is not avoided, it may make communication difficult. However, not all ambiguities are negative. Intentional ambiguity can create a special rhetorical effect or achieve a certain pragmatic goal.Studying pragmatic ambiguity could help us improve not only our comprehension and appreciation of the language, but also the ability to use it. The study of ambiguity has been conducted from the phonology, lexicon, syntax and pragmatics respectively, the results of which are distributed in the academic editions. But these researches, particularly from pragmatic perspective, remain at their elementary phase. This paper, therefore, presents a tentative study of pragmatic ambiguity about its formation, interpretation, restriction and utilization. Through a test on college students, the author sums up the main factors influencing ambiguous interpretation and tries to eliminate ambiguity by relevance theory. The study shows that English language is not only a contradictory but also a unified movement, harmonizing and restricting by various levels and factors. Finally, the analysis of pragmatic ambiguity in this thesis offers important implications to English teaching, translation and literary appreciation.