MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

LEXICAL AMBIGUITY IN ENGLISH POEMS WITH
REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE
(HIỆN TƯỢNG MƠ HỒ TỪ VỰNG TRONG THƠ TIẾNG ANH LIÊN
HỆ VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT)
ĐẶNG THỊ MINH NGUYỆT

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Dr. Trần Thị Thu Hiền
Hanoi, 2017

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate

i

Acknowledgements

ii

Abstract



1.7 Design of the study

4

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Previous studies

5

2.2 Semantics in linguistics

6

2.2.1 Definition of words

6

2.2.2 Word meaning

6

2.2.2.1 Components of word meaning

6

2.2.2.2 Transference of meaning

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2.4 English and Vietnamese poetry in the twentieth century

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2.4.1 Concepts of poetry

18

2.4.2 Typical types of English and Vietnamese poems

19

2.4.2.1 Typical types of English poems

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2.4.2.2 Typical types of Vietnamese poems

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2.4.3 Characteristics of poetry in the twentieth century

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2.4.3.1 Characteristics of English poetry in the twentieth century

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3.1.2.1 Polysemy in English poems

31

3.1.2.2 Polysemy in Vietnamese poems

34

3.2 Comparison of lexical ambiguity in English poems with reference to
Vietnamese
38
3.2.1 In terms of homonymy in English poems with reference to Vietnamese 38
3.2.2 In terms of polysemy in English poems with reference to Vietnamese
3. 3 Summary

40
42

Chapter 4: LEXICAL AMBIGUITY ERRORS MADE BY LEARNERS OF
ENGLISH
4.1 The test and interview

43

4.1.1 Subjects

Error! Bookmark not defined.
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4.4.2 Suggestions for the students

54

4.5 Summary

56

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION
5.1 Concluding remarks

57

5.2 Limitations of the study

58

5.3 Suggestions for further study

59

REFERENCES
APPENDIX 1

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64

APPENDIX 2

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the system of language might become overburdened, and then prevent people
communicating successfully. Due to this reason, there is an existence of linguistic
ambiguity while people use one word or phrase to implicit different meanings.
Involving English ambiguity, there are various types such as lexical,
structural, non-lexical ambiguity regarded as major ambiguity and the others as
metaphorical and intonation referred to minor ones. Structural and lexical ambiguity
has been mostly investigated by linguistic scholars. Some authors pay attention to
aspects of ambiguity in creating jokes, irony or puns and et cetera. Bucaria, C.
(2004) investigates some forms of ambiguity in English newspaper headlines.
Semiz, O. (2014) tests the comprehension of linguistic ambiguity in language-based
jokes. Others focus on conversational contexts which are created by linguistic
ambiguity. David, E.M. (1976) tests the given hypothesis to recognize the
ambiguous words in certain contexts.
To English learners, vocabulary is so crucial that it helps the learners express
their own ideas and understand others. In addition, vocabulary does not only help
learners comprehend the meanings of spoken English but it also aids learners in
perceiving written English. Wilkins, D.A. (1972) states that “…while without
grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”.
However, lexical ambiguity often causes misunderstanding or embarrassing
circumstances for both native speakers and the learners of English. Homonymy and
polysemy are considered as sources of English ambiguity. Without any cognition of
the ambiguity in lexicon, learners could get trouble with English in communicating
or in reading and writing all texts related to this language.

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In addition, the phenomenon of lexical ambiguity is permeated in almost all
languages, and it rises up strongly in Vietnamese. Vietnamese has a large number of
jokes, irony, humorous headlines or puns and et cetera created based on the

2. How is lexical ambiguity in English poems similar and different from
Vietnamese ones?
3. What are possible suggestions for teachers and learners to avoid lexical ambiguity?
1.4 Methods of the study
The research uses the main methods as qualitative, quantitative and
contrastive approaches for the most part which aim at identifying lexical
ambiguities found in English poems with reference to Vietnamese. Descriptive
method is used to describe the characteristics of lexical ambiguity in English poems.
Contrastive approach is utilized to find out the similarities and differences of lexical
ambiguity in English poems with reference to Vietnamese
On the other hand, the analytical and synthetic methods are used as
supporting methods in order to dissect the important issues related to lexical
ambiguity such as word meaning, homonymy, polysemy. A typical number of
examples are going to be given and analyzed both in these two languages.
1.5 Scope of the study
The study only concentrates on lexical ambiguity in spite of various types of
linguistic ambiguity. In the case of lexical ambiguity, homonymy and polysemy are
investigated. Moreover, the study draws attention to English and Vietnamese poetry
in the twentieth century.
1.6 Significance of the study
Theoretically, if the study would be successfully, it would be able to bring
the additional understanding of lexical ambiguity as well as homonymy and
polysemy. The study also gives some pivotal characteristics to distinguish
homonymy and polysemy.
Practically, this study will also be beneficial to the students and teachers in
their classroom setting. Importantly, the study will contribute to improving teaching
skills of teachers. It can help teachers choose more suitable ways of teaching
English. In addition, the study can assist learners have a thorough grasp of
homonymy and polysemy, recognize lexical ambiguity and disambiguate them
when learning English.

2.1 Previous studies
In lexical semantics and psycholinguistics, a large number of scholars
investigate polysemy and lexical ambiguity in their studies. Lexical ambiguity is
one of the most difficult issues in linguistics and thus, not surprisingly, it is at the
centre of lexical semantics researches.
Concerning the distinction of lexical ambiguity, Weinreich’s (1964)
distinction between contrastive lexical ambiguity and complementary ambiguity is
illustrative to this point. Geeraerts, D. (1993) puts emphasis to the importance of
context when determining the predictions of each of his tests, as he demonstrates
that context alters the senses of the words found in it. This emphasis on context is
common to all lexical ambiguity studies. Ravin, Y. and Leacock, C. (2000) present
the theoretical and computational problems of polysemy as well as lexical
ambiguity. Several previous studies concerning lexical ambiguity focus on verbs
rather than nouns. Bucaria, C. (2004) analyzes some forms of linguistic ambiguity
in English newspaper headlines. The author focuses on examples of lexical and
syntactic ambiguity that result in sources of voluntary or involuntary humor.
Kaplan, J. (2014) exploits the lexical ambiguities of random in the statistics
classroom and provides preliminary results that indicate that such classroom
interventions can be successful at helping students make sense of ambiguous words.
In Vietnamese, Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong (2012) considers lexical ambiguity
as one of the typical linguistic factors causing laughter in British funny stories. The
study focuses on British funny stories and their linguistic characteristics with
reference to cultural perspective to point out main factors causing laughter. Nguyen
Hai Ha (2012) pays attention to linguistic ambiguity which is regarded as a source
of constructing funniness in English verbal jokes. Tran Thuy Vinh (2015) presents
the types of jokes in view of language ambiguity illustrated by Vietnamese and
English language.

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referential meaning. For example, a woman may be defined as an adult female
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human. Connotative meaning includes stylistic, affective, evaluative and
intensifying, is the pragmatic communicative value the words acquires by virtue of
where, when, how and by whom, for what purpose and in what context it is.
Structural meaning contains reflected, collocative, associative and thematic
meaning. Categorial meaning is a part of grammatical meaning that words derive
from being a member of one category rather than another.
Every word combines a lexical meaning and grammatical meaning. The
lexical meaning of the word means the individual and reflective meaning of the
word; whereas the grammatical meaning can be defined as relationships between
words based on contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur.
2.2.2.2 Transference of meaning
There are two basic types of semantic transference which are named
metaphor and metonymy (Lyons, J., 1995).
Firstly, metaphor is the transference of meaning from one object to another
based on similarities between these two. In cognitive linguistics, metaphor is a
conceptual projection whereby one experiential domain (target) is partially
understood in terms of another experiential domain (source) included in the same
common experiential domain. For example: That woman is a witch. Source domain
states a witch has magic powers and does evil things. In target domain, that woman
is considered to be ugly and cruel. Metaphor could be classified into:
• living metaphor is a word used in unusual, novel meaning and
metaphor is fell as such. For example: She lent wings to his
imagination.
• faded metaphor is the one which has lost its freshness because of long
use and became habitual.
• dead metaphor is the word which has lost its metaphoric meaning and

the whole sentence has more than one possible interpretation/ meaning.
Nguyen Duc Dan (1993) describes ambiguity is that a sentence has at least
two ways to understand. He argues that ambiguity implies a state that cannot be
clearly distinguished the essence of the mentioned matter. Bui Thuy Linh (2008)
presents ambiguous expressions have more than one distinct meaning; vague
expressions have a single meaning that cannot be characterized precisely. Nguyen
Thi Van Lam (2006) discusses that ambiguity describes the linguistic phenomenon
whereby expressions are potentially understood in two or more ways: an ambiguous
expression has more than one interpretation in its context

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2.2.4 Types of linguistic ambiguity
Samson, M. (2011) presents five types of ambiguity in which the major types
of ambiguity named lexical, structural and non-lexical ambiguity and minor types
such as intonation and metaphorical ambiguity. Bucaria, C. (2014) states three kinds
of linguistic ambiguity including lexical, syntactic and phonological ambiguity.
Kennedy, C. (2011) classifies linguistic ambiguity into five subcategories including
lexical, structural, phonological, transformational and scope ambiguity.
Pham Thi Lan (2005) claims that there are two types of ambiguity titled
useful and injurious ambiguity. When sentences are used purposely, they are named
useful ambiguity. In literacy, for instance, authors use sentences with many ways to
understand such as play words or satire. In business texts, people utilize ambiguous
expressions to obtain better results. Occasionally, ambiguity becomes one of
effective strategies in human life. On the contrary, injurious ambiguity is created
beyond person’s control.
2.3 An overview of lexical ambiguity
2.3.1 Definition of lexical ambiguity
Although the concept of lexical ambiguity has been complex to address,

lexical items that are formally identical in phonetically but different in meanings.
For example:
• đường1 (đường tàu Thống Nhất) vs. đường1 (mua một cân đường)
(Mai Ngoc Chu, et al., 2008: 188)
Đường1 and đường2 are called homonyms because they are identical in
pronunciation but dissimilar in meanings. Đường1 means “a road” while đường2
denotes “sugar”. Beside the identical phonetics, Nguyen Van Khang (2007) adds
more detailed conception that homonymy has different lexical and grammatical
meanings. Bui Minh Toan (1999) expresses that homonymy are those words that
have different meanings, even different in the aspects of grammatical nature,
communicative function and personal styles.
In addition to have various concepts of homonymy, there are different ideas
of the classification of English homonymy. According to Professor Smirnitsky, A. I.
(1955), there are two large classes of homonyms which are full homonyms and
partial ones. Full lexical homonyms are words which represent the same category
of parts of speech and have the same paradigm. For example:

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She lighted another match1 to keep her body warm. vs. They’re going to the
stadium to see an important football match2.
Both match1 and match2 are nouns that are pronounced /mætʃ/. Match1
implies a short piece of wood used for lighting a fire while match2 means a sport
event where people or teams compete against each other.
Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups:
Firstly, simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words which
belong to the same category of parts of speech. Their paradigms have one identical
form, but it is never the same form, as will be seen in the examples:
• To found1 a company in US, people follow those complex

are identical and grammatically equivalent. However, bay1 indicates a part of the
sea or of a large lake, partly surrounded by a wide curve of the land whereas bay2
signifies a horse of a dark brown color. Bay1 and bay2 satisfy the above three
conditions mentioned, so they are called absolute homonymy. The two words dove
(a noun) and dove (past tense form of dive) are considered as partial homonymy
because they only share the first above condition.
Lyons, J. (1995) also classifies homonyms into three types. The first type is
full homonyms which are identical in both pronunciation and spelling. For example:
• She can1 play the guitar. vs. My brother needs a can2 of Coke.
Can1 and can2 are full homonyms because they are identical in both
pronunciation and spelling. Can1 and can2 are both articulated /kæn/. Can1 is a
modal verb used to say that it is possible for someone or something to do
something, or for something to happen. Can2 denotes a metal container in which
food and drink is sold.
Next, homophones are identical in pronunciation only. Write and right offer
an example: She’s going to write a report. Vs. She’s right about Thomas having a
new house.
Although write and right are not identical in spelling, they pronounced /raɪt/.
In these sentences, write implies to make letters or numbers on a surface, especially
using a pen or a pencil while right means correct in your opinion whereas right
means correct in your opinion or judgement.

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Lastly, homographs are words that identical in spelling only. Look these
following sentences:
• My little daughter feeds her dove1 every day.
• He dove2 into the sea.
Dove1 and dove2 are identical in spelling, even though they are pronounced

breathes through gills, and uses fins and a tail for swimming”
Secondly, homonyms among words and syllables are those words not
belonging to the same level of lexicon. For example:
Sầu1 riêng ai khéo đặt tên,
Ai sầu2 không biết, riêng em không sầu3!
(on http://khotangcadao.com)
Sầu1 and the word “riêng” are two morphemes in the compound noun “sầu
riêng” that denotes “durian”. Sầu2 and sầu3 both mean “sad”. The morpheme sầu1
in “sầu riêng” is homonymous with sầu2 and sầu3.
2.3.2.2 Polysemy
Polysemy is one of the major subjects interested by linguists who prefer to
refer to it as ambiguity. Polysemy comes from Greek “poly” (many) and “semy” (to
do with meaning as in semantics). Falkum, I. L. (2011) defines that a single word
form can be associated with several different meanings is a well known fact about
language. (2011: 9). This phenomenon is described as polysemy, and it proliferates
in natural languages. Lyons, J. (1995) expresses that polysemy designates a
situation in which a single word has a set of related meanings. Kreidler, C. W.
(1998) also presents that a polysemous lexeme has several related meanings.
See examples:
• He gave1 me a ruler.
• He gave2 me a strange look.
• He gave3 me a hearing test.
• He gave4 me hell. (Lyons, J.:1995)
Give1 refers to a procedure in which possession of an object changed from
“he” to “me” as the result of an action on the part of “he”. Give2 refers to another
kind of action, in which no change of possession is involved and the “object” is of
an abstract kind. Give3 is synonymous with “administer”. In give4 the “object

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This sentence does not mean a snake is not named Janes. What the person
said this sentence means that Janes is a dangerous and hidden person.
In metonymy, the relation that is assumed to hold between the senses of the
word is that of contiguity or connectedness. For example:
• My sister and his brother live under the same roof.
In this sentence, “roof” as a part of the house is refer to the whole house.
Lakoff’s framework of polysemy as well as its types presented is additionally
utilized for this study.
In Vietnamese, there exists different ways to classify polysemy. Nguyen
Thien Giap (2008) presents four ways to sort polysemy based on different criteria
such as the relations among words with its referent, between one word with other
words in language system. They are named:
- Direct and indirect meaning
- Ordinary meaning and terminological meaning
- Non-figurative meaning and figurative meaning
- Principal meaning and secondary meaning
- Original meaning and derivational meaning
Like English language, Mai Ngoc Chu, et al. (2008) and many other
Vietnamese linguists present that a word may have both a literal meaning and one
or more transferred meaning, which is create polysemy; the result is therefore
lexical ambiguity. One kind of transferred meaning is metonymy, the transference
of meaning from one object to another based on the association of contiguity of
notions. Another kind of is named metaphor where the transference from one object
to another based on the association of similarity between these two objects.
For example:
• Người cha mái tóc bạc

derivation of words” (Lyons, J., 1977: 550) and the other “in drawing the distinction
between homonymy and polysemy is unrelatedness vs. relatedness of meaning”
(Lyons, J., 1977: 551). For example:
• One of her heels felt too loosen for her foot1.
• The hotel is at the foot2 of the mountains.

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• The village is located along the both banks1 of the river.
• My father invested money into different banks2.
Foot1 and foot2 are related meanings, so they are polysemy. Foot1 means the
lowest part of the leg, below the ankle, on which a person or an animal stands. Foot2
is transferred the meaning from a part of body into the lowest part of a mountain.
Bank1 and bank2 are homonymy because of unrelated meanings. Bank1 means the
side of the river and bank2 implies a financial institution. Nevertheless,
etymologically related words drift apart over time and the semantic value changes
in relation to the original meaning. The problem of ambiguity arises too, “the
distinction is between those aspects of meaning that correspond to multiple senses
of a word versus those aspects that are manifestations of a single sense.” (Ravin, Y.
& Leacock, C. 2002: 2).
To unambiguously distinguish between lexical items which are either
homonymy or polysemy, the criteria are suggested by scholars:
• In accordance with the relatedness/ unrelatedness criterion, the
lexicographer will need to determine the extent to which the lexical
items are related before entering them in dictionary.
• The etymological criterion will help the lexicographer to determine the
relatedness of the lexical items for inclusion in the dictionary according
to their historical connection.
2.4 English and Vietnamese poetry in the twentieth century


Lyric
poetry

Sonnet

Dramatic
monologue
POETRY

Descriptive
& didactic

Epics
Narrative
Poetry

Mock-epic

Ballad
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In depth, elegy is an official lament for the death of an individual. An ode is
a long lyric poem with a serious subject written in an elevated style. The sonnet’s
original from a love poem that dealt with the lover’s sufferings and hopefulness. In
a dramatic monologue, a speaker makes a speech to a silent auditor in a specific
circumstance and at a critical moment.
Sub-categories of narrative poetry are for example epic, mock-epic and
ballad. Epics regularly activate on a large scale, both in length and subject matter.

which consists of eight heptameters.
The short variety consists of a stanza of four seven-syllable verses, known as
the Tu Tuyet heptameter quatrain. Terse and concise, this configuration forces the
poet to express images, sounds, and feelings in just four heptameters. It is the
preferred style for posting on rocky surfaces and walls, or for decorating dinnerware
and vases.
The eight-word verse preferred by younger generations, the octameter was
also extensively used in drama, especially during the decades of 1940-1960. The
octameter still enjoys great popularity along with the hexameter-octameter couplet
and other verse forms.
In their continuing quest for new methods of expression Vietnamese poets
have adopted a number of ideas from the West and Asia. The Japanese three-verse
haiku along with other Western verse forms from the United States, the United
Kingdom and France have all been tried in their experiment. This is the domain of
the blank verse and the free verse.
2.4.3 Characteristics of poetry in the twentieth century
2.4.3.1 Characteristics of English poetry in the twentieth century
In the years from 1900, the English scene turns into horribly chaotic due to
the fact that in modern time no 1iterary tradition is respected all. On the contrary, all
emphasis is made to fall on individualism, for whatever it may be worth. Corcoran,
N., (2007) presents three periods of English poetry in twentieth century.
In the first place, the Edwardian Period is named for King Edward VII and
spans the time from Queen Victoria's death (1901) to the beginning of World War I
(1914). Four fifths of the English population lived in squalor. The writings of the
Edwardian Period reflect and comment on these social conditions. Writers such as
George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells attacked social injustice and the selfishness
of the upper classes. Other writers of the time include William Butler Yeats, Joseph

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