Incorrect Punctuation, as a Cause of Ambiguity and Misunderstanding in Written Communication (a Case Study of Some Selected Essays of UG 111 Students)
Chapter One
AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
This research aims at examining some documented scripts to provide a comprehensive word list showing how words should be broken according to the most widely held practice, and to depict how it is used in written communication effectively. It also seeks to examine how it has made communication easier among students. The following are the objectives the study sets to achieve:
- To find out how punctuation makes communication
- To examine how incorrect use of punctuation causes ambiguity
- And to examine the effect of ambiguity on written
CHAPTER TWO
INTRODUCTION
This chapter is essentially dedicated to the review of related literature. The contributions of various scholars in the areas of ambiguity and communication in English language are highlighted.
Despite the fact that this research chose to limit itself to only written ambiguity, the oral part of ambiguity however will not be left out in this review as well as punctuation.
DEFINITION OF AMBUIGUITY
Most of the books reviewed tried in many respects to define or rather explain ambiguity in its simplest nature. According to Wallace (1962:467) among many obstacles in the path of successful communication, ambiguity is undoubtedly the worst offender. To them, an ambiguous word is one that may be understood in more than one sense. Therefore, a symbol may be interpreted differently by speaker and hearer. Also, in Kent (1995:114) ambiguity is the property of words, terms, notions and concepts (within a particular context) as being undefinable, or without an obvious definition and thus having an unclear meaning.
To him, a word, phrase, sentence, or other communication is called ambiguous if it can be interpreted in more than one way.
He further expatiated that ambiguity is distinct from vagueness, which arises when the boundaries of meaning are indistinct.
Kent (ibid) summarized that ambiguity is in contrast with definition, and typically refers to an unclear choice between standard definitions, as given by a dictionary or else understood as common knowledge.
Furthermore, in Falk (1973: 202) ambiguity is the converse of paraphrase, because in paraphrase, there are two or more same deep structures. In ambiguity, a single surface form with several meanings must have several different deep structures. Examples:
- John is too far away tosee
- John is too far away for anyone to see
- John is too far away to see anything.
We could say that sentence (2) is a paraphrase of one (1) and similarly, sentence (3) is another interpretation of sentence (1) Paraphrase must have the same deep structure that (2) in a single deep structure and (1) and (3) is another deep structure. Furthermore, successful communication according to Wallace (1962:473):
Occurs only when the reader correctly interprets the symbols used by the writer……when the communication is successful then the communication and the communicator have their minds referred to the same referents; they have the same terms” in mind. They have “come to terms” . But ambiguous words are obstacles to such happy communications, communication is frustrated when such failures of
communication occur; the speaker and the hearer have different referents in mind.
But they are of the view that ambiguity is an evil only when it results in these frustrations of communication. Also in scientific discourse, where the aim is to achieve clear and precise reference, ambiguity is an unmitigated evil. But there are other fields of thought in which ambiguity may have certain desirable effects. This is the case in poetry, where ambiguity may sometimes contribute to the poetic effect by suggesting a rich aura of implied meanings:
Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing faith is the substance of things not seen. In this manner, poetry approximates the effects produced by music, which among all of the arts is certainly the most expressly ambiguous. One of the greatest charms of music lies in the ambiguity with which it expresses moods, so that each hearer may interpret the musical score in his own way. Ambiguity also had more mundane uses.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
This chapter seeks to describe the types and sources of data used for this research. This is done to enable the reader to realize that, relevant texts are consulted, observed and described in an effort to throw more light on the subject of the research.
SOURCES AND METHODS OF DATA GENERATION
The data for this research comprise both primary and secondary collection methods. The primary source is observation method and the secondary sources are materials consulted such as text books, journals, etc. which have been found relevant to the topic of the research. This has been acknowledged in the citations and bibliography.
RESEARCH POPULATION
Basically, the target population for this study is the UG III Students of Department of Modern European Languages, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.As the research studies incorrect punctuation as a cause of ambiguity and misunderstanding of written communication among students.
Therefore, for the purpose of objectivity and also to have accurate information, the students of English that live in the hostel were consulted for assessment of scripts, where ten were assessed.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
INTRODUCTION
Incorrect punctuation causes a lot of ambiguity and misunderstanding in written communication. With this point being made, this research examines incorrect punctuation in selected assays of UG111 students of MELL, UDUS by analyzing the essays and highlighting how such incorrect punctuation creates ambiguity and misunderstanding in written communication.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION
This is the final chapter of the research work and also an important one, which deals with summary and conclusion.
SUMMARY
This research has been able to give a detailed account of punctuation marks, what they are and how students make use of punctuation marks.
It shows how the use of incorrect punctuation marks causes ambiguity and misunderstanding which is an inevitable phenomenon in written communication.
CONCLUSION
From the findings of this research work, It clearly shows that the use of punctuation marks makes written communication effective and shows its ambiguity where the punctuation marks are used improperly. It also shows how people use punctuation marks in different ways. Students find it difficult to use punctuation marks properly in written communication.
Often times, when we speak English, we usually utilize prosodic features such as stress, intonation, rhythm etc to make our meaning clear. However, in writing, of the function, these periodic features in speech are handle by punctuation in writing.
Consequently, written English has developed a conventional system of punctuation which is consistent and sensible: Every punctuation mark has one or more particular functions in accordance to its ascribed functions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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- Crystal, D. (2003).The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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- Hughes, J.P, (1968).Linguistic and Language Trainign. New York: Random House.
- Hughes, V. (1990).English Language Skills.London: Macmillan Publishers Limited.
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