The purpose of this paper is to explore linguistic ambiguity mainly from its negative effects and positive functions in the field of pragmatics in order to help people use ambiguity properly to reach a successful communication or create particular effects。 This article consists of seven parts。 The first part is an introduction which presents some background information on linguistic ambiguity。 The second part gives a literature review of linguistic ambiguity study。 The third part summarizes some definitions of ambiguity and points out two non-linguistic factors that may lead to ambiguity phenomenon。 The fourth part mainly discusses the negative effects of ambiguity from the standpoint of both speakers and listeners。 The fifth part presents some suggestions about how to avoid the negative effects of ambiguity according to its causes mentioned above。 The sixth part talks about the positive functions of ambiguity mainly from discourse, rhetoric and aesthetic aspects。 Finally, it gives a conclusion, which makes a summary of the thesis and invites thinking about the further study。

2。 Literature Review

Ambiguity is an important feature of our language and also an interesting topic。 Its study has a long tradition。 Many scholars have been researching it from different points of view in the history。 The earliest study can be traced back to the ancient European country。 There have been many precedents about the study on linguistic ambiguity。 Lots of linguists applied different linguistic theories into the study to explore ambiguity from different perspectives。 They studied ambiguity on phonological level, lexical level, grammatical level and semantic level etc。 and then gradually deepened their studies to pragmatic level taking context into consideration。 Though there have been many studies on this topic, some deficiencies remain to be solved。 For example, I consulted dozens of papers on this topic, but most of their studies were similar。 Their studies still stayed on the language level and they mainly studied ambiguity just as a simple linguistic phenomenon。 It seems that it is difficult to combine ambiguity study with other disciplines and fields。 Thus, the study results cannot be actually applied。 But it cannot be denied that these scholars’ studies build a solid foundation for the follow-up researchers and help people have a more profound insight of ambiguity。 In the following paragraphs I would like to discuss specifically about the current situation of domestic and international ambiguity studies as well as its deficiencies expecting to make good use of the existing studies and make some compensations on the deficiencies。

First, through the analysis of the previous studies, we can see that research angles of ambiguity were broad in linguistic field。 Language scholars try to analyze ambiguity from different perspectives so as to make new breakthroughs constantly。

Second, the study scopes of ambiguity phenomenon are similar。 In general, many studies on ambiguity are just from different angles to discuss similar contents, mostly about causes or classification of ambiguity or how to avoid the negative influence of ambiguity。 However it should be admitted that there are some breakthroughs during these decades, but these studies are not that integrated。

Third, the study about how to apply the findings of study is not sufficient。 There are many studies about ambiguity, but the study is just about ambiguity itself。 As a general linguistic phenomenon, ambiguity exists everywhere。 The final purpose of studying ambiguity is not just to know it but is to apply it。 So the study on ambiguity should not just linger on the linguistic level; rather, it should be combined with other disciplines and fields。文献综述

3。 The Definition and Causes of Ambiguity

3。1 Definition of ambiguity

Ambiguity is a universal linguistic phenomenon, which exists in every language and on every linguistic level。 From the syntactic and semantic point of views, language scholars have given many definitions to ambiguity。 John Lyons, an English linguist, defines ambiguity as: any form (this form can mean a word, a phrase, a sentence or a discourse), which can make more than one paring, is ambiguous。 Cann has pointed out that “a sentence is said to be ambiguous whenever it can be associated with two or more different meanings” (Cann 8)。 Zhang Qiao also states: “an ambiguous expression has more than one meaning, and they are semantically unrelated” (Zhang 180)。 In other words, an expression is considered to be ambiguous if it can be interpreted in different ways, and the interpretations are not paraphrases of each other。 Take Chomsky’s famous sentence for example, “Flying planes can be dangerous”。 The sentence is ambiguous, since it has two different explanations。 We can interpret it as “planes that are flying can be dangerous” or “the act of flying planes can be dangerous”。