【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 derstanding each other accurately and makes the munication more difficult, the languages can’t exist without ambiguity. So people widely apply the ambiguity to sundry occasions such as the daily munication, literature, merce, speeches and diplomacy and so on, and what really alleviates the straits in the munication. The uniqueness of the ambiguity makes varies of literature more profound and more meaningful.2. Research Background. Various Definitions of AmbiguityAmbiguity is a mon phenomenon in natural languages, but there are many different definitions from many scholars. In the book, Structure of English Ambiguity, Zhang keli(1993) said that there were many understandings about ambiguity, but when we conclude it, ambiguity just only has three kinds and they are lexical ambiguity, structure ambiguity and words ambiguity. He also mentioned that this structure of ambiguity only includes lexical ambiguity and structure ambiguity. Liu nina(2009) said that any language has the phenomenon of ambiguity. If the structure of the word or sentence follows the rules of grammar and the semantic meaning of the word or sentence follows the rules of logic that has two or more meanings, people call it ambiguity. Ni jingya stated that “An ambiguous sentence is usually of doubtful meaning because it can be interpreted in more than one way or many other ways.” (倪景亞2001：2) Strictly speaking, ambiguity is not rhetoric but a phenomenon of semantic understanding produced in the use of language. Previous Study of Ambiguity The Studies of Ambiguity in ChinaThere are many scholars studying ambiguity at home and abroad. And they know more and more about ambiguity gradually. Wang qiong(2001) pointed that structure ambiguity is a major phenomenon of language ambiguity, and any language has the phenomenon of ambiguity. Zhu xi thought the structure ambiguity means a sentence has many meanings, and many sentences always have two or more meanings. Qiu shude(1998) said the ambiguity involves many factors such as phonology, lexicology, grammatical structure and idiom and so on. According to the different standards and fields, ambiguity can be put into different classifications, such as structure ambiguity, phonological ambiguity, semantic ambiguity, grammatical ambiguity and pragmatic ambiguity on the part of triggering ambiguity of language level. And the grammatical ambiguity is the most difficult.Yun hong(2008) pointed that ambiguity is a very important rhetoric, and people always use ambiguity to make the sentence having two or more meanings. The Studies of Ambiguity in Western CountriesCecilia QuirogaClare（2003）said, we can understand the ambiguity in two or more ways. We call it lexical ambiguity if it is just a word. From another point of view, if it exists in a sentence, we call it structure ambiguity. Sometimes, we are not able to know and understand ambiguity very well because it always bees a little blurry in the language system. And ambiguity has an inseparable relation with literature, psychoanalysis and Computational Linguistics and so on.Kooij，JG(1974) (Ambiguity in Natural Language) pointed that ambiguity was always eliminated automatically in the context or in the general social occasions.According to the theory of Chomsky(2008) (A Generative Approach to Reference Ambiguity), the ambiguity occurred when the deep structure transforms into the surface structure through the relevant rules, or many deep structures transform into one same surface structure.3. Ambiguities in English Phonological AmbiguityPhonological ambiguity means the listeners will get two or more meanings because of the pronunciation in the conversation. In the daily English spoken conversation, some sentences should not give birth to ambiguity, but cause it, because of the lack of the help of imagination, the limited context, limited sounds and the existence of homophony and phrases. Intonation Intonation in the context will give rise to ambiguity. For example: 1) I beg your ↗ pardon. ( The speaker asks the hearer to repeat it again .) 2) I beg your ↘ pardon. (The speaker asks the hearer to give a forgiveness.) Homophony Homophony means words in identical sound but different in spelling and meaning. And in the context, it will cause ambiguity frequently, such as “blue” and ‘blew”, “add” and “ad”, “ours” and “hours”, “way” and “weight” and so on.1) “no” and “know”.For example: I have no idea about this thing, and I wish I have never known about this thing.In this sentence, these two words “no” and “know” have the same sound, but they have different meanings and usage.2) kneads and needsFor example:1) Everybody kneads it.2) Everybody needs it.The above sentences have two different meanings. Sentence A means everybody rubs it, while sentence B means everybody wants it. Stress Different stresses on the same word will also cause ambiguity. For example: 1) A mad’ doctor. 2) A’ mad doctor.The first phrase refers to “a doctor who is in a sickness with psychotic problem”。 but the second sentence means “a doctor who cures the patients’ psychotic problem.” Liaison Another factor which causes ambiguity is liaison.For example: My younger brother had a/’greid’ei/. 1) My younger brother had a grade A. 2) My younger brother had a grey day.These two sentences are different in meaning absolutely. The sentence a means “my brother was good in study”。 but the sentence b means “my brother had an unhappy day.” Lexical AmbiguityLexical ambiguity stems from the existence of homonymy and polys