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The Analysis of Ambiguity Found in Emily Dickinson's Poems

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The Analysis of Ambiguity Found in Emily Dickinson's Poems The Analysis Of Ambiguity Found In Emily Dickinson’s Poems Sitanggang Ramot T.B [email protected] Abstract This is study about ambiguity as found in Emily Dickinson’s Poems. This thesis focused on type of ambiguity which was conducted to discover the type of ambiguity as proposed by Katz. There are four type of ambiguity in this thesis. They are: Phonetic, Structural, Referential, and Lexical Ambiguity. Ten poems were taken as the sample of this research. The writer applied Katz’s theory in this research. There are 66 ambiguous sentences were analyzed in this research which was found in those ten poems. Phonetic ambiguity and structural ambiguity is not applied in Emily Dickinson’s poems. The most dominant type of ambiguity is Lexical ambiguity with 40(60.60%) occurrences and followed by Referential Ambiguity with 26(39.39%) occurrences. It’s mean that lexical ambiguity occurs in lexeme. Lexical ambiguity also known as semantic ambiguity because it is based on meaning . Keywords: ambiguity, Lexical ambiguity, Referential Ambiguity 1. The Background of the Study The scientific study of language is called linguistics. Language is the most important part of human life and social process that it so many functions, one of them is to describe the meaning of a text. It shares information for the people to understand about all of the event in the world wide. It means that one can only interact with others or expresses one's feelings by using a language or by manipulating the words of language other people know. It is common factor that when people communicate with another, they use a language or body language to express their feelings, ideas, opinions or suggestions. There are many linguistics subfield concerned with particular aspects of linguistic structure, ranging from those focused primarily on form to those focused primarily on meaning, such as: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, pragmatics, and semantics. Semantics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Semantics is concerned with sentence meaning and focuses on decontextualized meaning. Sampson (2001:1) states that language is people talking and writing. It means that when one is explaining something to another person, whether in talking and writing, she/he instinctively tries to organize what she/he says in a way that will make it easier for the hearer or reader to understand. Therefore, it needs some functions to express some meanings. In understanding the meaning, the readers have to know the meaning of the language so that she or he can understand the text easily. Two sentences can express a different meaning. This is due to the ambiguity. Ambiguity is an attribute of any concept, idea, and statement or claims whose meaning, intention or interpretation cannot be definitively resolved according to a rule or process consisting of a finite number of steps. Ambiguous meaning always makes the readers to be confused when she or he read the text. In understanding the real meaning of 6 the text, she or he must interpret at least two or more because it has more one sense, each of them can not be interpreted as meaning a and meaning b simultaneously. In understanding the meaning, it is very important to know the role of meaning because it has a great contribution to deliver some information for the readers. But, in fact, most of the readers always faced some problems when they try to get some meanings from English text. They still it difficulty in understand the meaning in the sentences because some ambiguous meaning often occurs in the text. The text can be in any form. It can be textbook, magazine, newspaper, novel or poem. As the result they can not get the messages from their reading poem. Poem is a composition in verse, especially one that is characterized by a highly developed artistic form and by the use of heightened language and rhythm to express an intensely imaginative interpretation of the subject. The writer interest to poems written by classical literature such as John Keats, William Shakespeare, Maya Angelou, and Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson, wrote thousands of famous poems, many of her poems have multiple “variants.” She put little crosses which essentially served as asterisks on her pages, followed by corresponding footnotes, indicating many alternate word choices for each poem, so that none was ever “finished” or had an official version. Besides that, there are so many ambiguous meaning hidden in her poems. In relation between ambiguity and Emily Dickinson’s poems, the writer wants to analyze the type of ambiguity used in Emily Dickinson’s poems. According to Katz (1971:248) there are four types of ambiguity namely: Phonetics, Structural, Referential and Lexical ambiguity. So it is important to understand that many sentences become ambiguous since readers lack of understanding of it. It has been mentioned earlier that it is impossible to understand English either in spoken or written form without understanding ambiguity, especially appears in language of poem. To solve problem, it is considered to conduct a study entitled “The Analysis of Ambiguity as Found in Emily Dickinson’s poems “. The objectives of this study are: to describe the types of ambiguity are found in Emily Dickinson’s poems, to find out the dominant type of ambiguity are used in Emily Dickinson’s poems The results of this research are expected to be useful for: Theoretically The result of the research as one of the linguistic exploration and application of ambiguity meaning analysis as found in poem. to be useful for other Poem writers in using Ambiguity sentence in their poems. Practically the readers and writers realize that in understanding the poem is not only to know about highly artistic words and rhythm, but also to understand the ambiguous meaning in the sentences, The finding of research is expected to gain benefit because it provides some valuable information particularly to other researchers who would like to conduct an in depth study on ambiguity. Theoretical Framework 7 In conducting a research, theoretical frames are very important to explain some concepts that applied in the research concerned. Consequently misunderstanding and miscommunication could be avoided. Some theories deals with the definition of certain terms are used in this research. Linguistics Language is a systematic means of communication ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings. The study of language is called linguistics. Robins (1979:6) states that linguistics also one of the social sciences, in that the phenomena forming its subject-matter are part of the behavior of men and women in society, in interaction with their fellows. It can be concluded that linguistics is the study of language, but not just particular languages, but the system of human communication. There are many linguistics subfield concerned with particular aspects of linguistic structure, ranging from those focused primarily on form to those focused primarily on meaning, they are: Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology ,Syntax, Pragmatics and Semantics. 1. Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones). 2. Phonology is the study of what sounds a language has, and how these sounds combined into sentences. 3. Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of morphemes and other units of meaning in language like words, affixes, and parts of speech and intonation or stress. 4. Syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. The term Syntax is used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language. 5. Pragmatics is the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts, and the role played by context and non-linguistics knowledge in the transmission of meaning. 6. Semantics is the study of the meaning of words (lexical meaning) and fixed words combinations (phraseology),and how these combine to form meanings of sentences. Semantics Semantics may be pointed out as the study of human beings communication to other people in broader sense. Robins (1979:14) describes that semantics is study of meaning. It means that understanding a language is to understand the meaning of the sentences, and it would eventually be the starting point in the study of language as a medium of communication. There are several other definitions of semantics given by linguists. Kreidler (1998:30) states that semantics also is the study of how language organizes and expresses meaning. Chierchia and Ginet (1992:1) say that semantics is branch of linguistic devoted to 8 the investigation of linguistic meaning, the interpretation of expression in a language system. Then, Palmer (1983:20) points out that semantics are the technical terms used to refer to the study of meanings. From the explanation above, the writer concluded that semantics is a division of linguistics dealing with word meanings or string of words which are meaningful. In other words, it is a study which concerned with meaning. Ambiguity When the listener understands the speaker's idea, he or she can grasp meaning and there is a good interaction between them. The meaning of words has an important role in communication. Principally, people improve their ability to communicate through language to get some meanings. Aitchison (1978:82) explains that study of meaning is normally referred as “semantics” .There so many problems in connecting with meaning. One of them is the relation of meaning and its word. For example, ‘There is a chicken’. The word ‘chicken’ can give some meanings to the reader. Firstly ‘chicken’ means ‘a kind of animal’.
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