Ambiguity as a Lnguistic and Rhetorical Strategy
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Ambiguity as a linguistic and rhetorical strategy can take a variety of forms, as Empson shows in Seven Types of Ambiguity. It is important to recognize that Empson's study does not necessarily exhaust the subject of linguistic ambiguity; he identifies seven types but does not insist that they are the only seven types of ambiguity that can be identified. As he says, he told his reader that "the distinctions between the Seven Types which he was asked to study would not be worth the attention of a profounder thinker." But Empson also says that he believes that all great poetry "is supposed to be ambiguous." If poetry is the highest and best use of the language, then all best uses of the language are also embedded with ambiguity. That decisively links linguistic ambiguity with deliberation and communication, as well as with metaphor, symbolism, irony, paradox ("Text is always paradoxical," says Barthes ), figures of speech, rhetoric--even aesthetics in general. It is important to recognize ambiguity as a multidimensional instrument embedded in linguistic production that is operationalized in a way that makes the latent content of language function according to its author's intent, even though (or exactly because) that content may (or seem to) be concealed by the manifest form the language takes. Indeed, the richness of context for ambiguity means that ambiguity cannot avoid touching metaphysics and moral philosophy.How purposive linguistic ambiguity operates is linked with r
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bfuscational, it may be actually less ambiguous than it intends to be. But it succeeds as an exercise in linguistic ambiguity to the degree it does not motivate a reader or listener to decode its unstated meaning or to identify the ideas motivating its use. Meanings that remain encoded are significant examples of ambiguity to the degree they do not become part of cultural, social, and political discourse. Those who encode meanings meant to remain that way (that would be corporatists and politicians and their apologists, for the most part) can thereby escape criticism or censure that they may deserve--and, if that is so, know very well that they deserve it.
In the contemporary literature of business and finance, in particular in the realm of communication, there is a good deal of discussion about "role ambiguity" in the workplace. That is the name give to the experience of workers who are not clear about how they are perceived and what is expected of them on the job, and who may suffer stress on that account. But what that condition comes down to is a failure of communication that can be laid to ambiguous employment of language. One interesting study of the linkage between job stress and role ambiguity has been measured in linguis
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Approximate Word count = 3531
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)
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