TG INTAN MASTURA BT TG MOHD RAMLI

911104-11-5054

Task 5 : Semantics AMBIGUITIES AROUND US

According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, third edition (2004), ambiguous means having more than one meaning, so that it is not clear which is intended. It also means difficult to understanding. Ambiguity, as we know, means double or multiple meaning and it is customary to distinguish two kinds which are lexical and structural ambiguity. The lexical ambiguity of a word or phrase pertains to its having more than one meaning in the language to which the word belongs. "Meaning" hereby refers to whatever should be captured by a good dictionary. For example, the word gay have several distinct lexical definitions. Gay traditionally means "happy" but in Modern English it also means homosexual. Ambiguity also common and happened in Bahasa Melayu. For example, the sign board Klinik Bedah, it can make people confuse whether that clinic was the surgery clinic or that clinic was owned by Bedah.

Ambiguity happen in different way according to different person. People who have good academic background will interprete the meaning of ambigous sentences in more correct way rather than person who are not really exposed to ambiguity. Besides, the positive thinking person also will interprete differently with the person who had negative thinking. There are advantages of ambiguity, first, it generates people ideas. People will be creative to use the words or sentences that can give multiple meaning to others. They will be creative in expressing their feeling. For example, im talking to the moon every night. This sentences can show that th e person was lonely or the person was missing someone that she loves. It can also mean that the person have to observe the moon every night due to his science project. Besides, it also help to improve ones vocabulary. The person who usually use ambiguity will have variety vocabulary.

TG INTAN MASTURA BT TG MOHD RAMLI

911104-11-5054

However, there were negative effect of ambiguity.

The effect implies that

people tend to select options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is known, over an option for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown. This show that the uses of ambiguity can lead to miscommunication.

Miscommunication happened when the receiver had interpretation the wrong message from the sender. For example, when the leaders had give unclear instruction, their followers will not possibly understand what a leaders intent. Besides, i can see the negative effect when the author use the ambiguity header for newspaper. Many people will give different perception based on what they thinking. Some people will straightly judge eventhought without reading the full explanation about the news. The rumours will spread widely and bring negative reputation to those involved. Therefore, we have to be careful to avoid misunderstanding on ambiguity.

As the conclusion, ambiguities had been use widely around us and it can bring postive and negatife side to all of us. Therefore, it depends on us how to use it whether in a good or bad way.