CAN THO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT TYPES OF AMBIGUITY IN WRITING ENGLISH BY SOPHOMORE STUDENTS OF ENGLISH EDUCATION AT CAN THO UNIVERSITY B.A Thesis Supervisor: Researcher: Truong Nguyen Quynh Nhu, MA Tran Thi Ngoc Hue Student ID: 7062943 Class: NN0652A2 Course: 32 Can Tho, May 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude for all those who have contributed to the completion of this thesis in different ways First of all, I would like to show my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Truong Nguyen Quynh Nhu MA, who gave me useful advice, clear instructions and valuable feedback on the thesis Her encouragement and enthusiasm were the most crucial factors to the completion of my thesis I will never forget her care about my anxiety and difficulties when I was in the teaching practicum at high school Second, I would like to send my appreciation to Dr Nguyen Thu Huong and Huynh Trung Tin MA They were very supportive teachers who gave me valuable feedback on the thesis, and were willing to recommend me references Third, I would like to gratefully acknowledge Nguyen Thi Trang Thao MA for her generous advice and support on the analysis of the data Fourth, my deep gratitude also goes to my academic counselor, Do Xuan Hai MA, who encouraged me to this bachelor thesis Last but not least, my regards are due to the participants, the students of English Education course 34 at CTU and all of my classmates Without their contribution and mental support, the study could not have been conducted TÓM LƯỢC Nghiên cứu thực từ tháng 2/2010 đến cuối tháng 4/2010 trường Đại học Cần Thơ dựa lý thuyết tối nghĩa, loại tối nghĩa cách kiểm tra tối nghĩa Nghiên cứu nhằm mục đích (1) tìm loại tối nghĩa mà sinh viên năm thứ ngành Sư phạm Anh văn trường Đại học Cần Thơ mắc phải trình viết tiếng Anh (2) đề xuất phương hướng nhằm hạn chế lọai tối nghĩa phổ biến Có 29 sinh viên năm thứ hai ngành Sư phạm Anh văn trường tham gia nghiên cứu Kết nghiên cứu thu thập từ đề viết Kết cho thấy 100% đối tượng nghiên cứu mắc phải lỗi tối nghĩa viết Đồng thời, kết cho thấy lỗi tối nghĩa mặt cấu trúc (structural ambiguities) phạm vi (scope ambiguities) sử dụng mức độ thường xuyên so với lỗi tham khảo (referential ambiguities) từ vựng (lexical ambiguities) Dựa kết nghiên cứu, tác giả đề xuất biện pháp nhằm giúp sinh viên hạn chế loại tối nghĩa phổ biến Bên cạnh đó, đề nghị phương pháp giảng dạy đưa ABSTRACT This study was conducted from February 2010 to the end of April 2010 at Can Tho University basing on theories of ambiguity, ambiguity types, and ambiguity test The purposes of this study are (1) to investigate what types of ambiguity in writing English sophomore students of English Education at CTU make and (2) to provide recommendations of resolving common types of ambiguities There were 29 sophomore English Education majors participating in the study Data were collected from a standardized writing test The result of the data showed that 100% of the participants made ambiguous sentences in writing Also, the result showed that more structural and scope ambiguities were made than referential and lexical were On the basis of the findings, recommendations of resolving common types of ambiguities are included (i.e., structural, scope, referential and lexical ambiguities), and pedagogical implications are also provided TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Abstract ii Table of contents iii List of tables and figures v Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Research aims 1.3 Significance of the study 1.4 Organization of the study Chapter 2: Literature Review 2.1 Definitions of ambiguity 2.2 Types of ambiguity 2.3 An ambiguity test 11 Chapter 3: Research Methodology 14 3.1 Research question 14 3.2 Hypotheses 14 3.3 Research design 14 3.4 Participants 14 3.5 Research instrument 15 3.6 Procedures of test administration 15 Chapter 4: Results 17 4.1 Ambiguity types and frequencies of occurrence 17 4.2 Structural ambiguity types and frequencies of occurrence 21 Chapter 5: Discussions, Recommendations of Resolving Ambiguities, and Pedagogical Implications 25 5.1 Discussions 25 5.2 Recommendations of resolving ambiguities 26 5.2.1 Resolving scope ambiguities 26 5.2.2 Resolving referential ambiguities 26 5.2.3 Resolving lexical ambiguities 27 5.2.4 Resolving structural ambiguities 27 5.3 Pedagogical implications 28 Chapter 6: Limitations, Suggestions for Further Research and Conclusions 30 6.1 Limitations 30 6.2 Suggestions for Further Research 30 6.3 Conclusions 31 References 32 Appendix 34 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table/Figure Page Table 4.1: Frequencies of structural ambiguity 17 Table 4.2: Frequencies of scope ambiguity 18 Table 4.3: Frequencies of referential ambiguity 18 Table 4.4: Frequencies of lexical ambiguity 18 Figure 4.1: Number of ambiguous sentences 19 Figure 4.2: Percentages of ambiguity types 21 Figure 4.3: Frequencies of structural ambiguity types 24 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION This chapter will address the rationale, research aims, the significance of the study, and the organization of the thesis 1.1 Rationale Despite the fact that English Syntax is difficult to most English majors, it is still my all-time favorite subject I had never been so sensitized to the complexity of English until attending the course I had simply thought that language is a clear and literal means for communication ideas; nevertheless, it was in the course that I discovered that even when we use language literally, misunderstanding may arise and meanings may shift (Clare, 2003; Jacobs, 2003) Therefore, it is obvious that such commonly written sentences as (a) “Old men and women are served first” or (b) “My house is in the park near the forest” may confuse readers because they are open to more than one interpretation in meanings That is, readers may understand sentence (a) in two ways: (a1) Women and old men are served first and (a2) Old men and old women are served first Similarly, sentence (b) can be paraphrased as two ways: (b1) My house is in the park which is near the forest and (b2) My house is in the park and near the forest Clearly, normally a word or syntactic structure has more than one meaning, in or in spite of its context (Newmark, 2001) This phenomenon is part of language and defined as ambiguity in language As a result, towards a better communication in which people understand each other without any barrier of language form and structure, ambiguities should be treated as a problem to be solved by language learners and users (Newmark, 2001; Clare, 2003; Jacobs, 2003) The attraction of ambiguity has motivated me to constantly research into ways ambiguities in English are made, fields they are employed, and strategies to disambiguate ambiguities It is amazing that ambiguities have been employed in many fields, especially newspaper headlines, advertisement and poems to create dramatic effects on readers Both Hoenisch (2004) and Webber (2007) agree that lexical and structural ambiguities contribute to make newspaper headlines ambiguous and humorous Such headlines as (a) Iraqi heads seek arms and (b) Stolen painting found by tree are typical examples of ambiguity application in this field Headline (a) is lexically ambiguous because the word “head” can be a chief or a head of a body and the word “arms” can be both weapons and body parts Also, headline (b) may be understood as a stolen painting was found near a tree or a tree found a stolen painting In addition, puns which are resulted from ambiguities are frequently used in advertisement deliberately (Nguyen, 2002) The sentence “It’s not worth dying for a drink” is a good illustration of the use of ambiguity in the advertisement industry The phrase to die for a drink can be understood as to die because of a drink or to desire a drink” Therefore, we can paraphrase this sentence as it’s not worth dying because of a drink or it’s not worth desiring a drink Ambiguities also exist in poems like a poetic vehicle although not everyone discovers them when reading (Tran, 2006) The example “She lost the paradise with her first bite of the apple” which means “She lost the paradise as soon as she first bit the apple” or “She lost the paradise because she bit the apple” is a good evidence of ambiguities used in poems Obviously, ambiguities occur in many fields of life even when we not recognize them Inspired by these interesting finds, I have conducted a small investigation into ambiguities I have made in a number of the compositions that I have written so far So surprisingly, I found that I seemed to write without a thought of what I wrote may have misled readers; a lot of ambiguous sentences were made in these compositions Many of them have later been improved according to the comments of my instructors; others still remained unchanged because these ambiguities were not recognized then, and if any, I did not know how to disambiguate them either According to Norvig (2006), although serious ambiguities may occur everywhere in sentences, not all readers and listeners but only linguists find them ambiguous by careful analysis It means that sometimes ambiguity is not discovered by the people who make it, but it may cause many problems when the others consider it to be ambiguous Ambiguity is then becoming a matter of concern for language learners and users; it is also a great challenge for teachers of English (Jacobs, 2003) From a perspective of a learner, I strongly believe that ambiguities are common and serious errors that may cause misunderstanding and misinterpretations; thus may disqualify the quality of a writing (Newmark, 2001) This belief, together with my own interesting findings about ambiguities in English, prompted me to conduct the research titled Types of Ambiguity in Writing English by Sophomore Students of English Education at Can Tho University 1.2 Research aims The research aims at two goals First, it aims to investigate types of ambiguity sophomore students of English Education at Can Tho University (CTU) make when writing in English Second, on the basis of the findings, recommendations of resolving common types of ambiguities, and pedagogical implications will be proposed 1.3 Significance of the study The primary aim of the study is to investigate types of ambiguity by sophomore English Education majors at CTU The study, first of all, thus creates a great learning opportunities for the researcher to enhance (a) a deeper understanding of conducting research work and (b) deeply held knowledge of the research subject matter (i.e., ambiguity in English) through research activities (Feldman & Mc Phee, 2008) Second, the findings of the study raise awareness among EFL teachers and students at CTU of the current writing practices in term of writing errors, in particular, the ones including ambiguities Third, the inclusion of recommendation to resolve common types of ambiguity found in the study contributes a helpful guidance to improve the quality of the students’ writing 1.4 Organization of the thesis The study consists of six chapters Chapter provides the rationale, the aims of the thesis, the significance of the study, and the organization of the thesis Chapter covers definitions of ambiguity, types of ambiguity, and an ambiguity test Chapter describes the research method employed in the study They are research questions, the researcher’s hypotheses, research design, participants, research instrument, and procedures of test administration Chapter addresses the analysis and synthesis of data collected from the instruments, that is, ambiguity types and frequencies of occurrence, and structural ambiguity types and frequencies of occurrence Chapter presents discussions, recommendations of resolving ambiguities, and pedagogical implications Chapter includes limitations of the study, suggestions for further research, and conclusions lexical, 6.9%, (6) of them made all of the four types, 3.45% A chart is drawn to illustrate this case Am biguity types in one essay 55.17% 60.00% (1) 50.00% (2) 40.00% (3) 30.00% 20.00% 13.79% (4) 13.79% 6.90% 6.90% 10.00% 3.45% (5) (6) 0.00% Figure 4.2 The percentages of ambiguity types The fact that 16 essays, equivalent to 55,17%, consists of both structural and scope ambiguity indicates that these type of ambiguities are more frequently employed than the other 2: referential and lexical In addition, the statistics show that, except for participants only making structural ambiguities, there were 25 out of 29 participants making more than one ambiguity type in their essays In the next section, the structural ambiguity types will be reported, and all of the types with particular examples and frequencies of occurrence will be presented via a chart 4.2 Structural ambiguity types and their frequencies of occurrence 71 structurally ambiguous sentences were collected; among these, there were sentences simultaneously consisting of ambiguous structures, so the total number of ambiguous structures in these 71 sentences was 77 These ambiguous structures were classified into categories The patterns of each category as well as the explanations are presented below 26 Pattern 1: V + and + V + Adverb/Adverb phrase/Adverb clause Examples: (1.1.) You don’t know how to organize and order the information in the lesson suitably The sentence is structurally ambiguous because whether the adverb suitably modifies only the verb order or both of the verbs organize and order (1.2.) They can find book and research them by themselves at home The adverb phrase at home may be a modifier of only the verb research or both of the verbs buy and research Pattern 2: V1 + O + (to) V2 + (to) V3 + V4 Examples: (2.1.) Teachers’ encouragement makes me always learn English to teach and communicate This sentence can be understood as “teachers’ encouragement makes me always learn English to teach and always learn English to communicate” or “teachers’ encouragement makes me always learn English to teach and always makes me communicate” (2.2.) It requires people to try their best to discover and study The verb requires may affect on the two verbs try and study, while the verb try can also affect on the two verbs discover and study Pattern 3: V + O1 + preposition + O2 + O3 + (and) O4 Examples: (3.1.) You will spend much time searching information on TV, books, Internet An ambiguity arises as soon as the sentence is analyzed that “You will spend much time searching information which is on TV, on books or on Internet” or “You will spend much time searching books, Internet and information which is on TV” 3.2.) When you study by yourself, you can read information from books, reference books and newspapers This sentence is also ambiguous because of the structure “read information from books, reference books and newspapers” can be understood as read information which is from books, from reference book and from newspapers or read reference books, newspapers and information which is from book 27 Pattern 4: V + N+ prepositional phrase Examples: (4.1.) I am trained organization skills from activities in class In the sentence, the prepositional phrase in class results in structural ambiguity may be an adjunct of the verb trained or an adjective to modify the noun activities (4.2.) It is a good chance for us to develop some necessary skills in real situations The prepositional phrase in real situations has the same function as in class in 4.1 Therefore, this sentence is also considered to be ambiguous Pattern 5: Adjective + noun modifier + head noun Examples: (5.1.) Teacher is a good knowledge resource The noun phrase “good knowledge resource” can be paraphrased as “a knowledge resource which is good” or “a resource of good knowledge” (5.2.) Teacher is a reliable information source Similar to the example 2.1., the noun phrase “reliable information source” provides two possible meanings as “a source of information which is reliable” or “a source of reliable information” Pattern 6: Adjective + N + and + N Example: We have encountered with some difficult problems and exercises that can’t be solved without teachers What the adjective difficult attempts to modify in the sentence is hard to decide It may be problems or both problems and exercises *It can be noticed that the noun phrase difficult problems is a sort of redundancy because problem is certainly difficult, so it is not necessary to add difficult to modify problem However, because this study only aimed to investigate types of ambiguities made by the participants, such mistakes of redundancy were not taken into consideration in the study Pattern 7: N + and + N + Adjective phrase/Adjective clause Examples: (7.1.) I can learn many experiences and know more knowledge which I cannot know if I study by myself The adjective clause in the sentence can be a modifier of knowledge or both experiences and knowledge Therefore, it causes this sentence to be ambiguous 28 (7.2.) They get many experiences and know many things around them The phrase around them is hardly to know whether it modifies many things or both many experiences and many things or the verb get The seven structural ambiguity types demonstrated through patterns above occurred at different degrees of frequency The following chart clarifies the frequencies of these types numbered from (1) to (7) according to the order of patterns above 38.96% 40.00% 35.00% (1) 30.00% (2) 25.00% (3) (4) 20.00% 14.29% 11.69% 15.00% 10.00% 14.29% 9.09% 7.79% (5) (6) 3.90% 5.00% (7) 0.00% Figure 4.3 Frequencies of structural ambiguity types As can be seen from the chart, Pattern is the most common ambiguous structures employed by the participants, whereas Pattern is the least The finding indicates the participants frequently produced sentences containing Pattern That is to say, they used an adverb or an adverb phrase or an adverb clause to modify verbs in one sentence This ambiguity type may confuse readers because they not know whether the modifier modifies one or all of the verbs in a sentence 29 CHAPTER DISCUSSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS OF RESOLVING AMBIGUITIES, AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS This chapter will be about discussions, recommendations of resolving ambiguities and pedagogical implications 5.1 Discussions From the results, as reported in chapter 4, all of the participants made ambiguities in their writing English To be specific, 100% made structural ambiguous sentences, 69% scope, 24.1% referential and 6.9% lexical The findings strongly support the researcher’s hypotheses (1) “The participants would make ambiguities while writing” and (2) “More structural and scope ambiguities would be made than referential and lexical” Also, the results of analysis indicate that there was more than one type of ambiguity employed in one essay In addition, 77 ambiguous structures found in 29 essays show that the participants made more than one structural ambiguous sentences in their essay This indicates that structural ambiguities occur at a more frequency and they are more difficult to avoid than three other types: scope, referential and lexical As mentioned in section 4.1 that all of scope ambiguous sentences found were resulted from two elements: (1) an adverb of frequency followed by two verbs and (2) negative word not This proves that scope ambiguities are rather easy to identify but hard to avoid because language users often employ adverbs of frequency and negative words in their sentences Unlike Bach’s (1994) finding (i.e., lexical ambiguity is the most common), lexical was the least frequently used Therefore, it can be concluded that the frequencies of lexical ambiguity depend on the situation or the topic while structural and scope not It may be concluded that students from different universities and colleges or in other situations made lexical ambiguities at a different frequency In fact, the participants had already studied about ambiguity in English before participating in the study However, they were aware of word choice, spelling and 30 grammatical structures when writing, while they did not take ambiguities into careful consideration As a result, students may create ambiguities unintentionally regardless of the fact that ambiguity is a grave error in writing English (Newmark, 2001) In the next section, recommendations of resolving ambiguities will be included 5.2 Recommendations of resolving ambiguities According to Jacobs (2003), ambiguities are so serious that non-native speakers must learn to use contextual clues to disambiguate such sentences Additionally, all of the ambiguous sentences can be disambiguated if the context is reasonably informative (Newmark, 2001) Therefore, basing on what type of ambiguity a word or a sentence is, learners can disambiguate ambiguity by adding more context or, very normally, using a paraphrased sentence 5.2.1 Resolving scope ambiguities As mentioned in chapter 2, scope ambiguities resulted from negative words are the most common, yet it is not as serious as other ambiguity types are Therefore, it is suggested that scopes of negation should be taken into consideration by adding more context to the sentence in order to emphasize which part of the sentence is negated For example, in the sentence They cannot learn from books, “not” causes scope ambiguity This ambiguous sentence may improved They cannot learn from books but from their friends which helps readers know that not is used to negate from books 5.2.2 Resolving referential ambiguities In order to avoid referential ambiguities, personal pronouns should not be used to replace one of two nouns Instead of using “they” to replace “their students” or “teachers” in the sentences “Teachers always orient the right ways for their students although they sometimes make mistakes in deciding something”, the students may use “the latter” to replace teachers or “the former” to replace their students 31 5.2.3 Resolving lexical ambiguities Lexical ambiguities are rather easy to be disambiguated In order to resolve them, the students should add more contexts or use synonyms or change the word order to make the ambiguity clear For example, the word research in the sentence “When we meet difficulty in our studying and research, we are confused in choosing materials” is lexical ambiguity because it may be a noun or a verb The meaning of the sentence would be clear if it is revised as when we meet difficulty in our studying and in research to show that research is a noun, or when we research and meet difficulty to indicate research is a verb Another strategy is the students should add more context to lexical ambiguous sentences to clarify them For example, the sentence “She cannot bear children” should be improved she cannot give birth to children because she is childless or She cannot tolerate children because she hates them to be disambiguous 5.2.4 Resolving structural ambiguities Rewriting or paraphrasing the ambiguous structures is one effective way to resolve structural ambiguities Since there are numerous of ambiguous structures, no specific strategy can be proposed However, relying on the structural ambiguity type, the students may disambiguate it appropriately and effectively For example, an ambiguous noun phrase consisting of an adjective, a noun modifier and a head noun as a reliable information resource may be used in place of a resource of reliable information or a reliable resource of information which is not ambiguous Another example from a student’s writing is “I realized my strong points and my weak points when studying” This sentence is structural ambiguous because both “I realized when I was studying” and “both strong and weak points of my study” are possible Therefore, it is highly advisable that the sentence should be rewritten in two ways as (a) “When studying, I realized my strong and weak points” and (b) “I realized my both strong and weak points of my study” to be disambiguous It is obvious that all structural ambiguities can be avoided or disambiguated Language users thus need to study the ambiguous sentences carefully to find out the causes of ambiguity, which help to resolve these ambiguities successfully 32 All in all, despite the fact that ambiguity is part of a language, it should be treated as a problem to be solved for a better communication among people In the next section, pedagogical implications will be presented on the basis of the findings 5.3 Pedagogical implications The findings of the research indicated that ambiguity is common and serious, and hard to be avoided Nonetheless, it is very important to interpret ambiguous sentences precisely and avoid un-wanted interpretations Jacobs (2003) once stated that: The ambiguities present a challenge for teachers of English The general consensus is that learners should first be presented with sentences that are as clear as possible and that there should be helpful contextual clues (p 226) Thus, ambiguity should be a matter of concern in a number of courses, for example, English Grammar in Use, English Syntax and English Writing, which require students to study to study English language (i.e., grammar, syntax) and to a variety of writing tasks It is highly suggested that explicit instruction of English ambiguity should be applied to teaching approach in these courses In other words, ambiguity (i.e., concept, types) may be presented formally, followed by practice ambiguity recognition and editing (Richards, 2002) According to Bland (2003), becoming language-aware through explicit instruction is an important step in the language learning process: Students apply their understanding about ambiguity to their independent language use in order to identify ambiguity in reading and avoid making ambiguity in both speech and writing, thereby improving their writing skills Another pedagogical implication is that the ambiguity test designed by Kempson (1996) should be employed in courses of English This test helps to differentiate ambiguous sentences from disambiguous sentences Also, it helps to distinguish between cases of ambiguity and cases of vagueness If students apply this test appropriately, it will be easier for them to identify and resolve ambiguous sentences in their compositions Finally, editing is an aspect of the writing process Therefore, self-editing and peer-editing should be included in the editing process Students are required to find 33 and correct errors (i.e., ambiguous sentences) in their own and other students’ drafts before submitting the final written product Through self-editing or peer-editing process, students will become independent self-editor of their own written work (Bate, Lane and Lange, 1993; Hendrickson, 1980 as cited in Ferris, 2002), thereby reducing errors in terms of ambiguity and improving the overall quality of students’ writing (Ferris, 2002) 34 CHAPTER LIMITATIONS, SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH AND CONCLUSIONS In this chapter, limitations of the study, suggestions for further research, and conclusions are presented 6.1 Limitations It is the first research that the researcher has ever conducted; therefore, limitations in procedures in conducting the study are unavoidable One limitation was the design of the study This was a small pilot study conducted with a small-sized sample (n=29) of one course (course 34) at Can Tho University; as a result, the findings may not generalize to other students in other colleges or universities The second limitation was that the study focused only on investigation of quantity and quality of ambiguities and types of ambiguity and the causes of these ambiguities but not on sources of ambiguities As a consequence, suggestions to resolve ambiguities were primarily based on the results The third limitation was the insufficient related studies in the literature review Even though ample theories of ambiguities were presented, there were hardly any empirical studies reported 6.2 Suggestions for further research This study represents a first attempt at investigating what types of ambiguity created by the participants and discussing some strategies to disambiguate these ambiguities It is highly recommended that the reasons why ambiguities are still made regardless of the fact that students know these ambiguities exist in language should be investigated in another study In this descriptive study, the use of a questionnaire on the perceptions of the students of ambiguities in English may reveal insights into the causes of students’ ambiguities Basing on the findings of the test responses and the questionnaire, the research may suggest more reliable and effective strategies to avoid ambiguities which help students improve their writing Further, an experimental study in which the effectiveness of these proposed strategies on enhancing students’ writing performance is investigated may be conducted in the future 35 6.3 Conclusions The study mainly aimed to investigate types of ambiguity made by sophomore English Education majors at CTU It was a descriptive study conducted basing on two hypotheses that the participants make ambiguities in their writing, and structural and scope ambiguities are more frequently employed than the other two: referential and lexical The findings indicated that 100% participants made ambiguities when they were writing in English and they use structural and scope more frequently than they did referential and lexical It is concluded that ambiguity is very hard to avoid if the language users not take it into consideration Due to the limitations regarding the study design, the researcher suggests that further research should focus on the causes why English majors make ambiguities when writing so that more effective strategies are proposed to solve ambiguities 36 REFERENCES Atlas, J D (1989) Philosophy without Ambiguity Oxford: Oxford University Press Bach, K (1994) Ambiguity Retrieved December 26, 2009, from http://online.sfsu.edu/~kbach/ambguity.html Bachman, L F and Palmer, A S (1997) Language Testing in Practice: Designing and Developing Useful Language Test England: Oxford University Press Bland, S K (2003) Grammar Sense England: Oxford University Press Clare, C Q (2003) What Does Language Ambiguity Mean? Retrieved February 29, 2010, from http://translationdirectory.com/article08.htm Codish, S & Shiffman, R (1995) A Model of Ambiguity and Vagueness in Clinical Practice Guideline Recommendations Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cruse, D A (1986) Lexical Semantics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Feldman, J & Mc Phee, D (2008) The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching Newyork: Thomson Delmar Learning Felkins, L (1995) Dilemmas of Ambiguity and Vagueness Retrieved on January 26, 2010, from http://perspicuity.net/paradox/ambiguit.html Ferris, D (2002) Teaching students to self-edit (pp 328-324) In Richards, J C & W A Renandya (Eds.) Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthropology of Current Practice Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hoenisch, S (2004) Identifying and Resolving Ambiguity Retrieved December 30, 2009, from http://www.criticism.com/linguistics/types-of-ambiguity.php Jackson, H (1999) Analyzing English: An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics Ho Chi Minh City: Thanh Nien publisher Jacobs, R A (2003) English Syntax Da Nang City: Da Nang publisher Kempson, R.M (1996) Semantics Theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Newmark, P (2001) A Textbook of Translation Cambridge: Pearson Education Limited Nguyen, H Q & Huynh, T N (2008) English Syntax Course Book Can Tho City: Can Tho University 37 Nguyen, T Y (2002) Advanced Vocabulary & Idioms Ho Chi Minh City: HCM publisher Norvig, P (2006) Multiple Simultaneous Interpretations of Ambiguous Sentences California: California University Press Payne, L (2009) How to Differentiate Between Vagueness and Ambiguity Retrieved March 12, 2010, from http://www.ehow.com/how_2223510_differentiate-betweenvagueness-ambiguity.html Pyle, M A & Page, M E M (2002) TOEFL Preparation Guide Covers CBT and the Latest Changes Ho Chi Minh City: Youth publisher Richards, J C (2002) Addressing the grammar gap in task work (pp 153-166) In Richards & W A Renandya W A (Eds.) Methodology in Language Teaching: Anthropology of Current Practice Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Seliger, H.W & Shohamy, E (2000) Second Language Research Methods Oxford: Oxford University Press To, M T (2004) English Semantics Ho Chi Minh City: Ho Chi Minh publisher Tran, T V (2006) Some tips to disambiguate lexical and structural ambiguities The Scientific and Technique Developing Magazines, 9(3), 37-45 Webber, B (2007) Ambiguity and the Lexicon in Natural Language Retrieved January 29, 2010, from http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses.pdf Williamson, T (1996) Vagueness Oxford: Oxford University Press Zhang, Q L (2007) A Discussion on Ambiguity in English US-China Foreign Language, 5(1), 1-5 38 APPENDIX Course: … Years of Studying English: … Writing test Direction: For this essay, you have to write a response to a question that asks you to state, explain and support your position on an issue Question: “Some people think that they can learn better by themselves than with a teacher Others think that it is always better to have a teacher Which you prefer?” 39 40 [...]... represents a first attempt at investigating what types of ambiguity created by the participants and discussing some strategies to disambiguate these ambiguities It is highly recommended that the reasons why ambiguities are still made regardless of the fact that students know these ambiguities exist in language should be investigated in another study In this descriptive study, the use of a questionnaire... ambiguity should be a matter of concern in a number of courses, for example, English Grammar in Use, English Syntax and English Writing, which require students to study to study English language (i.e., grammar, syntax) and to do a variety of writing tasks It is highly suggested that explicit instruction of English ambiguity should be applied to teaching approach in these courses In other words, ambiguity... writing in English are investigated In this descriptive research, both qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect and analyze data were employed That is, the data were analyzed first qualitatively to discover and describe the types of ambiguity Then, these types of ambiguities were quantified as descriptive statistics in terms of frequencies 3.4 Participants 29 English Education majors course 34 at. .. perceptions of the students of ambiguities in English may reveal insights into the causes of students ambiguities Basing on the findings of the test responses and the questionnaire, the research may suggest more reliable and effective strategies to avoid ambiguities which help students improve their writing Further, an experimental study in which the effectiveness of these proposed strategies on enhancing students ... English ambiguities (2) They have trained in writing paragraphs and essays in English (3) They are willing to participate in the research and interested in research work 3.5 Research instrument In order to answer the two research questions, a standardized test on writing (i.e., TOEFL writing test) was employed to collect the data on the types of ambiguity made by the participants The researcher decided... ambiguity types and frequencies of occurrence will be specified Then, structural ambiguity types and frequencies of occurrence will be addressed 4.1 Ambiguity types and frequencies of occurrence To investigate what types of ambiguity the participants make, the following TOEFL writing test was administered “Some people think that they can learn better by themselves than with a teacher Others think that it... the post-nominal modifier of the noun phrase the hunters or an adverb phrase to be the optional adjunct of means of the verb watched In summary, ambiguity deals with a variety of interpretations in meanings Regardless of how many meanings which are interpreted, there is only one precise meaning that is intended by the speaker or writer Ambiguities are classified into a number of classifications (i.e.,... sentences in their compositions Finally, editing is an aspect of the writing process Therefore, self-editing and peer-editing should be included in the editing process Students are required to find 33 and correct errors (i.e., ambiguous sentences) in their own and other students drafts before submitting the final written product Through self-editing or peer-editing process, students will become independent... are six parts in this chapter: research questions, the researcher’s hypotheses, research design, participants, research instruments, and procedures of test administration 3.1 Research questions This research is guided by two research questions: (1) Do sophomore students of English Education CTU make ambiguities when they are writing in English? (2) What types of ambiguity are made by the students? 3.2... which of two or more specific meanings is intended by this phrase, then it is ambiguous to him/her In the next part, types of ambiguity will be addressed in a detailed discussion 2.2 Types of ambiguity From different points of view, ambiguity can be variously classified by different linguists Almost these linguists provided clear definitions and appropriate illustrations for their classification According