Abstract：Ambiguity is pervasive in English. This paper analyses the characteristics of English ambiguity and its negative and positive sides in specific pragmatic use, with a view to helping English learners avoid ambiguity or utilize it properly. First, it analyses English ambiguity in almost all levels, including phonetics, vocabulary, syntax, and cultural aspects, and its difference with vagueness and generality. An analysis of the negative and the positive effects of ambiguity shows that, on the one hand, contextualization and replacement can be used to eliminate ambiguity, and on the other hand, ambiguity properly used in daily communication, literature, classroom teaching, political speeches and advertising also produces humorous effect or creates a pun.

Key words：English ambiguity; disambiguation; pragmatic effect

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

中文摘要

Chapter One INTRODUCTION-1

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW-3

Chapter Three FEATURES OF AMBIGUITY-5

3.1 Ambiguity at Different Levels-5

3.1.1 Phonetic ambiguity-5

3.1.2 Lexical ambiguity-6

3.1.3 Syntactic ambiguity-8

3.1.4 Cultural ambiguity-11

3.2 Differences fromVagueness and Generality-12

3.2.1 Vagueness-12

3.2.2 Generality-12

Chapter Four PROPER ATTITUDE TOWARDS AMBIGUITY-14

4.1 Negative Ambiguity-14

4.2 Methods of Disambiguation-14

4.2.1 Contextualization-14

4.2.2 Replacement-15

4.2.3 Other methods-15

4.3 Positive Ambiguity-15

4.4 Applications of Ambiguity-16

4.4.1 Ambiguity in literary works-16

4.4.2 Ambiguity in commercial advertisements-16

4.4.3 Ambiguity in daily communication-17

4.4.4 Ambiguity in political speeches-17

4.4.5 Ambiguity in classroom teaching-18

Chapter Five CONCLUSION-19

REFERENCES-20