The Ambiguity of Speech: A Stylistic Aspect

The aim of this research is to clarify the concept of ambiguity and, accordingly, the set of ambiguous speech figures, interpretations of which in the literature demonstrate a significant diversity of opinions. The research material is primarily literary, in particular, poetic, speech, which is characterized by an acute stylistic effect achieved by functionally relevant violations of communicative norms - the requirement of speech unambiguity in our case; the sample size was more than 300 units. The study showed that: 1) ambiguity should be considered as the implication of speech unit A₂ (A₃, ...) under unit A! by the addresser when it is impossible for the addressee to make an unambiguous choice between A 1 and A2 (A₃, ...) due to the defective context; accordingly, in addition to descriptive and transformational methods, the study used contextual and motivational analysis; 2) the condition for implementing ambiguity in speech is the presence of an associative relationship between A ₁ and A₂ (A₃, ...). According to the nature of this relationship, the figures of ambiguous speech can be divided into three rows. 1. Row 1 is based on the relations of semantic derivation: a) taxonomic transfers; b) metonymy, in particular metalepsis and synecdoche; c) open metaphor, including allegory and enigma. The closest generic concept for allegory appears to be the ex simili metaphor, the concretizers are the open nature of this metaphor, its expansion and focus on explanation. The typical (going back to the Antiquity) understanding of allegory as an expanded metaphor does not make it possible to distinguish closed and open metaphors; therefore, it is inadvisable. A metaphor can be either closed (i.e., unambiguous) or open, tertium non datur; from this point of view, the use of the concept of “incomplete” allegory is unreasonable. 2. Row 2 is based on the relations of the complete identity of the form (dilogy; in particular, amphiboly). The language basis of these figures are: 1) homonyms; 2) polysemants whose lexical-semantic variants (LSVs) are not linked with semantic derivation relations, since: a) LSVs go back to one producing unit (thus being coderivatives); b) the connection through semantic derivation relations between LSVs is lost or weakened, and most speakers of the language do not longer feel it. If there is a tangible relation of semantic derivation between LSVs, the basis of ambiguity is not polysemy, but transfers (See point 1). 3. Row 3 is based on relations of incomplete identity of the form (phonetic allusion; in particular, paragram). Thus, the linguistic basis of figures of ambiguous speech are associations: 1) derivational (cases 1 and 2.2a); 2) by the same sounding (case 2.1); 3) by close-sounding or consonance of nominative units (case 3); case (2.2 b) is located on the scale between the poles represented by types (1) and (2.1).

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