An effective communicator conveys his/her message effectively and there is no ambiguity in his/her utterances.
If the meaning intended is the same as the meaning conveyed by the writer/speaker and the meaning interpreted by the reader/listener, then communication is said to be effective. A word, phrase or sentence is said to be ambiguous if it has more than one meaning.
Look at the news headlines and sentences below:
1. Prostitutes appeal to religious leaders
2. Children make tasty food
3. Breast cancer in women mushrooms
4. Include your wife while baking cake
5. Two ships collide, one dies
In the first sentence above, the word ‘appeal’ can have two different meanings: i) to make an earnest request, 2) to be especially attractive. So the sentence can be interpreted in two ways: i) Prostitutes make a request to religious leaders, or ii) Religious leaders find prostitutes very attractive.
In the second sentence, the word ‘make’ can have two meanings: 1) to prepare, 2) to prove to be. The intended meaning is that children prepare tasty food. The word ‘mushroom’ as a verb means ‘to spread’ or ‘to develop quickly’ and as a noun means ‘any of several edible species’. The intended meaning is that many women have breast cancer. It can also be interpreted that women mushrooms have breast cancer. The intended meaning of the fourth sentence is that the act of baking cakes should be done by husband and wife together. The other interpretation is that a person should put the cake as well as his wife in the oven. The fifth example is a headline. It is ambiguous because it can be interpreted as: i) one person died ii) one of the ships died.
There are two types of ambiguity: lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity. Many words in English have more than one meaning. For example, the word ‘light’ has many different meanings, some of which are: i) illumination from a source, ii) an outstanding leader, iii) daytime and iv) spiritual enlightenment. Here are example sentences:
■ The light of a candle.
■ Jawaharlal Nehru was a leading light of our freedom struggle.
■ Children should be allowed to play during the hours of light.
■ There is light in the spiritual leader.
In the five sentences we saw at the beginning, there is lexical ambiguity arising from words having more than one meaning. If the intended meaning is not conveyed correctly, the message can be misinterpreted by the listener/reader.
When a phrase or sentence has more than one underlying structure, it is said to have structural ambiguity as in the examples below:
1. Our professor lectured on the passenger ship. (Did the professor lecture about the passenger ship or did he lecture on board?)
2. The puppy is ready to eat. (Is the reference to a hungry puppy or to a cooked puppy that is ready to be eaten?)
3. Three short boys and girls are in the team. (Is the total number of short people three or is the total six: three short boys and three short girls?)
4. Aldeesh is an English teacher. (Is Aldeesh a teacher of English or is he a teacher from England?)
Here are some more ambiguous sentences:
1. Ashok has dated a more beautiful woman than his friend.
2. This woman can’t bear children.
3. She killed the man with a gun.
In the next column on ambiguity, I’ll discuss how to disambiguate sentences and communicate effectively.