THE AMBIGUITY IN THE TEACHING OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Vietnam National University, Ha Noi Vietnam National University, Ha Noi UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT THE AMBIGUITY IN THE TEACHING OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION (Final Assignment For Semantics) Supervisor Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm Student Trần Thị Phượng Group K18C Hanoi, 62010 TABLE OF CONTENTS 31 Ambiguity 31 1 Ambiguity and Language 41 2 What Does Language Ambiguity Mean? 42 Two types of Ambiguity 42 1 Lexical Ambiguity 62 2 Structural Ambiguity 73 The basic me.

Vietnam National University, Ha Noi

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

THE AMBIGUITY IN THE TEACHING OF

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

(Final Assignment For Semantics)

Supervisor : Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm Student : Trần Thị Phượng

Group : K18C

Hanoi, 6/2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2.2.Structural Ambiguity 5

The abilities of language include listening, speaking, reading and writing Listening and reading is the way of language input They are all active receptive skills, and are the most important ways dependent on which people can get information from the outside world Listening is a more important one But because of the limitation

of language and the optional nature of the response which shows people`s thought

of the outside world, sound language inevitably becomes to be uncertainty under some definite circumstances That is ambiguity Ambiguity is a common phenomenon of the language and language communication The indefinite characteristics of ambiguity is a common trammel that interferes with the learner`s listening comprehension To have a better understanding of the characteristics, general rules of ambiguity and to master the basic ways of discriminating ambiguity

is helpful to the learners` semantic inference

1 Ambiguity

1.1 Ambiguity and Language

　　 The ways of language input are listening and reading They are all receptive skills, and are the most important ways dependent on which people can get information from the outside world Listening is a more important one .The nature of listening comprehension is listener use language knowledge and background knowledge actively

to absorb and analyze the information , to understand exactly speaker`s meaning, to get

a thorough understanding of the whole conversation

　 　 The teaching of listening comprehension aims at enlightening learners how to understand the pure information contained by the sound symbols Obviously, because

of the limitation of language and the optional nature of the response which shows people`s thought of the outside world, sound language inevitably becomes to be uncertainty under some definite circumstances Thus, the ambiguity of sound language often make learners who use English as the second language do not know how to understand the pure information contained by the sound symbols So, the ambiguity is

an important interference that should not be ignored in the teaching of listening comprehension The realization of the characteristic of the ambiguity and the basic method of identification of ambiguity will improve the ability of student`s listening comprehension

　　 Despite the fact that ambiguity in language is an essential part of language, it is often an obstacle to be ignored or a problem to be solved for people to understand each other In any case, language ambiguity can be understood as an illustration of the complexity of language itself

1.2 What Does Language Ambiguity Mean?

As a start, I will define some terms to clarify what we mean by “ambiguity” By defining “lexical and structural ambiguity,“ “connotation, denotation and implication Ambiguity “,“Semantic Ambiguity“, “Syntactic Ambiguity“, “Pragmatic Ambiguity”,

“Understanding ambiguity“, and so on , I will try to construct a base upon which language ambiguity in listening comprehension takes on extra meaning

　　Something is ambiguous when it can be understood in two or more possible senses

or ways If the ambiguity is in a single word it is called lexical ambiguity If the ambiguity is in a sentence or clause, it is called structural ambiguity

2 Two types of Ambiguity

2.1 Lexical Ambiguity

Lexical ambiguity stems from the existence of homophony and polysemy

Homophony occurs when a single word has more than one meaning For example, the word bank can be used to denote either a place where monetary exchange and handling takes place or the land close river, the bank of the river

Some other examples of homophony are: The word tin

• This can is made of tin

• Put the left-over’s in the cookie tin

The word tan

• Anne went to Mexico and got a tan

• My favorite jacket is black with a tan collar

In these examples the context in which the sentences occur omits confusion that

homophony might have caused

Homophony also occurs when a word that is not necessarily spelled the same but is pronounced the same and used to have different meanings

For example, the words night and knight are pronounced exactly the same although

they are spelled differently, and they have very different meanings

• It gets very cold here at night

• The knight in shining armor saved the princess

Polysemy occurs when a word, or small group of words, has two or more related meanings This may sound a lot like homophony, and it is true that they are related

However, polysemy involves close relations between meanings of a single word,

where homophony may involve completely different meanings

Some examples of polysemy are:

The verb to glare

• The sun glared down from the hot desert sky

• The angry girl glared at the boy who had pulled her hair

The word bright

• The stars are bright tonight

• She must be very bright if she made an "A" on the test

2.2 Structural Ambiguity

Structural ambiguity occurs when a phrase or sentence has more than one underlying structure, such as the phrases 'Tibetan history teacher', 'a student of high moral principles' and 'short men and women', and the sentences 'The girl hit the boy with a book' and 'Visiting relatives can be boring' These ambiguities are said to be structural because each such phrase can be represented in two structurally different ways, e.g., '[Tibetan history] teacher' and 'Tibetan [history teacher]' Indeed, the

existence of such ambiguities provides strong evidence for a level of underlying syntactic structure (see SYNTAX) Consider the structurally ambiguous sentence, 'The chicken is ready to eat', which could be used to describe either a hungry chicken or a broiled chicken It is arguable that the operative reading depends on whether or not the implicit subject of the infinitive clause 'to eat' is tied anaphorically to the subject ('the chicken') of the main clause

It is not always clear when we have a case of structural ambiguity Consider, for example, the elliptical sentence, 'Perot knows a richer man than Trump' It has two meanings that Perot knows a man who is richer than Trump and that Perot knows man who is richer than any man Trump knows, and is therefore ambiguous But what about the sentence 'John loves his mother and so does Bill'? It can be used to say either that John loves John's mother and Bill loves Bill's mother or that John loves John's mother and Bill loves John's mother But is it really ambiguous? One might argue that the clause 'so does Bill' is unambiguous and may be read unequivocally as saying in the context that Bill does the same thing that John does, and although there are two different possibilities for what counts as doing the same thing, these alternatives are not fixed semantically Hence the ambiguity is merely apparent and better described as semantic under-determination

3 The basic methods of distinguishing ambiguity in teaching listening comprehension

　 　 In fact, any language is based on certain idiomaticalness In <People and Language>, A F Wallork said: “Language is a composite The comprehension formed in the people`s communication is largely depend on the cognitive ability of the interaction between many factors in the usage of language “It points out the complexity and the unavoidable situation of Ambiguity, and idiomaticalness is the key of knowing the pure information of Ambiguity The logic of people`s thought governs idiomaticalness that is the inter community in people`s language The basic

rule of listening comprehension is the unification of the sound and the meaning Only in this way, sound can contain the pure information The learners should know the idiomaticalness in English, the methods of logic, language circumstance, the background of culture and the knowledge of tone and so on , for ambiguity often disturb the unification

3.1 　　Getting rid of thinking model

　 　 As we all know that, different subjective world can result from the same objective world In other words, people`s observation and thinking models are governed by the structure of language

　　 For example:

　　 The sentence “Sitting in his pants” in Vietnamese means someone is wearing

in his/her pants But in English it means bareness

　　 “ eat one`s words” in Vietnamese means break one`s prom but it means acknowledge one`s mistake in English

　 　 One`s mother tongue is gradually formed in certain circumstance , thus , he/she has been governed by fixed thinking methods of mother tongue So, in listening comprehension, it will be difficult to get rid of those fixed methods Therefore, learner should practice his/her thinking model in English positively 　

3.2 　Griping the additional things of sounds

　　 In communication, one can express his intention by pause, changing his tone, mood and other expressing methods or by laughing, screaming, groaning, sighing and so on All of these are the additional thing of language, and they are very important in distinguishing ambiguity in listening comprehension

3.3 Identifying the context

　　 The meaning of sentence will change as the changing of the context Context means the circumstance of communication

　　 For example

　　 “It is a square meal “

　　 The “square“ here means generous ,not a shape with four straight sides that are the same length and four right angles, because there is a word “meal“ in the sentence This is the context In sentence “The train was long “ It is difficult to

determine if the train means carriages or wagons that are pulled by an engine along a railway line or just a skirt without certain context

　 　 The organization of language depends much on context, and its variation usually clings to given context The speaker use correct speech in given context

to make the arrangement of his speech corresponds to certain context and social background The ordering of information depends on the grammar and logic bases on national cultural background, and influenced by the given context Context gives word or sentence different meanings

　　 So in listening comprehension, we should distinguish context positively in order to reduce the misunderstand of the ambiguity`s pure information

3.4 Knowing well about the background of social culture

　　 Culture is the summation of material civilization as well as mental civilization which is created in the long history by human being Language should not break from given civilization, which is the summation that is created in the long history of human being and decides our observance and faith Each language is enriched by the nutrition which comes from certain culture and civilization Each language has its own characteristic

　　 In modern society, opportunities often arise for people to interact with others from abroad First-time visitors to foreign countries may find themselves a bit surprised at the different lifestyles and cultural peculiarities they encounter

　　 For example:

　　 The American form of address starts with the name of the individual first, then the street name, the city and state and finally the nation It shows that America is built upon the premise of the value of the individual over and above the state and nation

　　 But the Vietnamese way of address stares with the name of nation first, the city and the street, then the name of the individual It shows that Viet Nam is built upon the premise of the value of the nation, the state, and the group over the individual 　　 Moreover, what is seen as common saying in one culture may be constructed as strange and even insulting in another culture? So it would form ambiguity without the background of culture

　　 For example:

　 　 The need to show respect is universal But how you show it is cultural In American , to show respect in a church on removes his hat , In Viet Nam, to show respect in a mosque , one puts on his hat and removes his shoes The result is the same, but the habit is different

　　Americans believe that high self-esteem and positive self-regard are signs of a healthy individual This positive self-regard often includes speaking about oneself, one`s possessions and one`s talents in a self-flattering manner On the other hand, the act of bragging or boasting about oneself, one`s possessions or one`s talents is viewed as extremely bad form by Vietnamese The one who boasts is regarded as a fool who does not know his or her limitations

　　 In the United States, one informal or casual kind of social gathering is a potluck

At a potluck, each guest brings some food To prevent guest bringing the same dishes, the host or hostess sometimes suggests what kinds of food each guest should bring They do not want a party with 20 different pies or cakes and nothing else! But in Vietnamese dictionaries, it is hard to find this word, “potluck “ Usually, the host or hostess needs to prepare everything, If you suggest your guest should bring something to your party, a misunderstanding may occur

　　 So, it is very important to develop cross-cultural awareness in order to function

in listening comprehension

　　 For example:

　　 In Vietnamese, we said “as strong as an elephant “, but in English we used to say “as strong as a horse “ To express culture, language is an important method Specific culture and civilization can give certain characteristic to language

　 　 The contents of civilizations are diversified, for each of them has a versatile knowledge storehouse People are living in definite national culture , For Vietnamese learner ,the understanding of distinct cultural value of English depends

on the practice, which they did positively such as idiom, slang, and common saying are all contain certain deep cultural value We should not infer their meanings just

by their pronunciations

　　 The integration of pronunciation and meaning is not inherent but depends on the determination of given social culture and custom arranged by idiomaticalness In the teaching of listening comprehension, be familiar with each idiomaticalness is the foundation of distinguishing ambiguity

4 Conclusion

Language cannot exist without ambiguity; which has represented both a curse and a blessing through the ages Since there is no one “truth“ and no absolutes, we can only rely on relative truths arising from groups of people who, within their particular cultural systems, attempt to answer their own questions and meet their needs for survival

　 　 Language is a very complex phenomenon Meanings that can be taken for granted are in fact only the tip of a huge iceberg Psychological, social and cultural events provide a moving ground on which those meanings take root and expand their branches