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Chapter One Literature Review

1.1 The Definition and Classification of Ambiguity
In our daily verbal communication, the purpose of the speaker is to make himselfunderstood by the hearer, and under normal conditions the utterance is successfully acquiredby the hearer, but it does not mean that the hearer can understand all the utterance in any case.Generally speaking, a word or a phrase has only one definite meaning, and the hearer caneasily understand the speaker’s intention, but when a word or a phrase or a sentence structurehas more than one interpretation, and it can convey more ways of understanding, it isambiguous. For example, “We saw a board.”In the sentence, the word “saw” has two interpretations: a)become aware of somebody orsomething by using eyes, and “saw” is the past tense of “see”; b)use the a special tool that hasa long blade with a sharp-toothed edge, worked by hand to cut. Such a phenomenon is calledambiguity, which usually takes place when the hearer acquires the different meaning that thespeaker wants to express. Previously, it is taken as an obstacle in our verbal communication inthat it often misleads and confuses those language users, and people try their best to find theways to avoid such a barrier. Actually, ambiguity of our language has its demerits and meritsas well.There are different domestic
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1.2 The Definition of Intentional Ambiguity
From the overall review of the definition and classification of ambiguity people willhave a clear knowledge of ambiguity, but we found that the definition all focus on the generalinformation of ambiguity itself, we’ve rarely seen intentional ambiguity in great detail; just inQiu Shude’s classification, we found intentional ambiguity as a subdivision. And so far a lotof scholars have made great efforts to study such a special language phenomenon, yet most oftheir researches only focus on the description of it , and usually fairly general.Here is a statement from Blakemore (1987) that his utterance understood in a particularway, a speaker must expect it to be interpreted in a context in which that interpretation oughtto be inferred. In a changed context, there will be a misunderstanding. Another point of viewarises: Kittay (1987) proposes that in our daily verbal communication, an addresser oftenmakes his utterance understood purposefully in a certain context or the interpreter senses thatthe utterance has more than one interpretation, as we know it is a positive application ofstructural contradiction of language. Perhaps, it is an initial definition of intentionalambiguity.Later, Samovar (2000) claims his viewpoint that verbal interaction is not a randomactivity that happens by chance, rather, is systematic and planned. The planning might bemindless or instantaneous, but it is conscious.
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Chapter Two Theoretical Framework

2.1 The Relevance Theory
Grice is the first linguist who presented Cooperative Principle sharing four maxims: themaxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation, and the maxim of manner,upon which Sperber and Wilson firstly put forward Relevance theory, at that moment thetheory was defined as "cognitive account of pragmatic understanding"[3]in their co-authoredwork Relevance: Communication and Cognition publi本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。