Analysis of Ambiguity in Humorous Riddles.
ABSTRACT
Ketika manusia menggunakan bahasa dalam berkomunikasi, termasuk di
dalamnya bahasa Inggris, akan terdapat kemungkinan munculnya ketaksaan. Hal
tersebut berpotensi menyebabkan perbedaan dalam pengertian antara pemberi dan
penerima pesan. Akan tetapi, pada kenyataannya ketaksaan tidak hanya mengarah
pada hal-hal negatif. Ketaksaan juga dapat digunakan secara positif dan kreatif
dalam penggunaan teka-teki yang menghasilkan kelucuan.
Dalam penelitian ini, saya menganalisis teka-teki yang menggunakan
ketaksaan yang menghasilkan kelucuan. Teka-teki yang saya analisis berjumlah
enam belas, yang diambil dari lima sumber di Internet, yaitu Enchanted Learning,
Funology, Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom, Reading Rockets dan
RinkWorks. Ketaksaan dalam analisis ini didasarkan pada teori Charles W.
Kreidler dalam bukunya Introduction to English Semantics dan teori humor
tentang script of incongruity dari Victor Raskin.
Setelah menganalisis enam belas teka-teki tersebut, saya menemukan ada
sembilan belas ketaksaan di dalamnya. Jenis ketaksaan yang paling banyak
ditemukan adalah jenis lexical ambiguity, dengan penyebabnya homonimi. Dari
hasil penelitian ini, dapat disimpulkan ketaksaan merupakan faktor utama dalam
menyebabkan pemahaman berbeda yang berujung pada kelucuan.
ii
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Akhir kata, penelitian ini diharapkan dapat membuka wawasan para
pembacanya tentang ketaksaan yang ternyata dapat berfungsi positif untuk hal
edukasi dalam permainan bahasa terutama teka-teki.
iii
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................i
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ..........................................................................1
Statement of the Problem ..........................................................................4
Purpose of the Study .................................................................................4
Method of Research ...................................................................................5
Organization of the Thesis ........................................................................ 5
CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .....................................6
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS OF AMBIGUITY
IN HUMOROUS RIDDLES ................................................................15
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ..................................................................40
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................44
APPENDIX ..........................................................................................................47
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APPENDIX
Table 1. List of Ambiguities in Riddles
No
Riddles
Type of Ambiguity
Why are fish so smart?
1.
Lexical ambiguity
Because they swim in schools!
Why did the student bring a king to class?
2.
Lexical ambiguity
Because his teacher told him he needed a ruler!
What kind of stamp do you have to stick on
3.
yourself?
Syntactic ambiguity
None. You stick them on envelopes.
What is the easiest way to make a banana split?
4.
Syntactic ambiguity
Cut it in half!
What did the doctor say to the patient who
5.
thought he was getting smaller?
You’ll just have to be a little patient!
47
Syntactic ambiguity
Why did the bear tiptoe through the
Syntactic and lexical
6.
campground?
ambiguity
He didn't want to wake the sleeping bags!
Q: Mr. Blue lives in the blue house, Mr. Pink
lives in the pink house, and Mr. Brown lives in
7.
the brown house. Who lives in the white
Lexical ambiguity
house?
A: The president!
8.
I am the black child of a white father, a
wingless bird, flying even to the clouds of
heaven. I give birth to tears of mourning in
pupils that meet me, even though there is no
Lexical ambiguity
cause for grief, and at once on my birth I am
dissolved into air. What am I?
Smoke.
How do you stop an elephant from charging?
9.
Take away her credit card!
Lexical ambiguity
Where do penguins go to dance?
10.
Lexical ambiguity
The snow ball!
Why did the teacher wear sunglasses?
11.
Because her students were bright!
Lexical ambiguity
Why didn't the sun go to college?
12.
Because it already had a million degrees!
48
Lexical ambiguity
Q: Tuesday, Sam and Peter went to a
restaurant to eat lunch. After eating lunch, they
13.
paid the bill. But Sam and Peter did not pay
Syntactic and referential
ambiguity
the bill, so who did?
A: Their friend, Tuesday.
Q: If a blue house is made out of blue bricks, a
yellow house is made out of yellow bricks and
14.
a pink house is made out of pink bricks, what
Lexical ambiguity
is a green house made of?
A: Glass
Why was the clown sad?
15.
She broke her funny bone!
Lexical ambiguity
Q: Why did the man put the clock in the safe?
16.
A: He wanted to save time.
49
Lexical ambiguity
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
People are social creatures; thus, they express their feelings, emotions,
thoughts, and ideas by interacting with their fellow beings. They use language to
interact with others and it is undeniable that they use language in almost every
aspect of their lives. Therefore, it can be considered that language is a very
important part in people’s lives, which cannot be separated from communication.
Anna Wierzbicka (3), in her book, Semantics: Primes and Universal, states that
the function of language is an instrument for conveying meaning.
Ideas and meanings can be expressed both in spoken and written language.
However, there is a possibility that the hearer or the reader gets a message that the
speaker or the writer does not really mean. This is so because the speaker or the
writer sometimes does not state his or her meaning clearly and explicitly, with the
result that the hearer or the reader interprets the meaning in a different way than is
intended by the speaker or the writer.
1
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Furthermore, understanding written language is more difficult than spoken
language. If the hearer does not understand what the speaker says in his or her
utterances or speeches, the hearer can directly ask the speaker what he or she
actually means. However, if the reader does not understand what the writer has
written, he or she most probably cannot directly ask the writer. Because of the
different views and interpretations between the two sides, misunderstanding in
spoken and written language is likely to occur.
One of the sources of misunderstanding is ambiguity. Ambiguity means a
word or a phrase or a sentence that has more than one meaning (Bach). In other
words, a word or phrase or sentence can be interpreted in more than one way. The
ambiguity in a word or a phrase or a sentence usually creates confusion or
uncertainty of meaning for the reader. In support of this view, according to
Geoffrey Leech (30), an expression is said to be ambiguous when more than one
interpretation can be assigned to it. This ambiguous expression can happen in a
word, a phrase or a sentence.
In this thesis, I would like to discuss ambiguities in written riddles which
are taken from the Internet, I have selected the written riddles from five websites:
Enchanted Learning, Funology, Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom,
Reading Rockets and RinkWorks. The reason for choosing these websites is the
riddles are suitable as my data as they can be analysed by using particular
linguistic theories. A riddle is most probably quite confusing and it has an
unexpected answer. Since many riddles contain ambiguity, and ambiguity is part
of linguistics, they can also be analysed by using some theories of linguistics. In
this case, language serves an important function, not only as a means of
2
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expressing people’s ideas, but also as something which gives pleasure to the
writer or speaker and the reader or hearer. On top of that, riddles are one of the
examples of a creative way of using language for fun. Besides this, ambiguity
plays a significant role as a technique which is commonly used to create humour,
and it is also one of the causes of misunderstanding in communication. Riddles,
then, use the misunderstanding from the ambiguity to create humour.
The title of my thesis is “Analysis of Ambiguity in Humorous Riddles.” The
reasons for choosing this topic are, firstly, ambiguity is one of the language
aspects which abound in many languages, including in the English language.
Moreover, people cannot avoid ambiguity, although there are many theories to
help people avoid it. When an ambiguity occurs in a statement, it can create a
misunderstanding. Secondly, the misunderstanding does not usually refer to a bad
thing. The misunderstanding which results from the ambiguity can be used for
something pleasant, as the ambiguity has an important role in producing humour.
Thirdly, riddle is a form of language which uses ambiguity to create a humorous
effect.
When doing my analysis, I used the ambiguity theory based on Charles W.
Kreidler. He divides ambiguity into three types: lexical ambiguity, referential
ambiguity, and syntactic ambiguity (Kreidler 55, 151, 169). My analysis also
applies the theory of script incongruity by Victor Raskin to explain the producing
of humour in the riddles. Raskin uses the term script and adopts the view that
words and sequences of words in a text act as triggers in activating particular
scripts for text processing (Cook 75).
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I believe this topic is significant to analyse. It is commonly known that
people might think that riddles are just for fun. Yet riddles have an academic side
too, as one of the significant aspects is ambiguity, which belongs to linguistics.
Therefore, the readers are expected to be able to realize and also explore how the
theoretical understanding of linguistics contributes to language patterns in English
riddles.
(810 words)
Statement of the Problem
The problems which I would like to analyse in this thesis are stated below:
1. What word or phrase makes the riddle ambiguous?
2. What kind of ambiguity can be found in the riddle?
3. What is the cause of the ambiguity?
4. How does the ambiguity in the riddle contribute to the script incongruity?
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this thesis is to answer the problems of this research which are
mentioned above. They are as follows:
1. To show the word or phrase that makes the riddle ambiguous.
2. To show the kind of ambiguity found in the riddle.
3. To show the cause of the ambiguity.
4. To find out how the ambiguity in the riddle contributes to the script
incongruity.
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Method of Research
First of all, I choose the topic of this thesis, which is ambiguity in riddles.
Then I begin to do some library and Internet research by reading some books and
searching for other materials needed which relate to the theory of ambiguity and
script incongruity. After that, I gather and choose some riddles from different
websites in the Internet which can be analysed by using some ambiguity theories
and also the theory of script incongruity. Finally, I write the research report.
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis is presented in four chapters and is preceded by the Abstract.
The first chapter is Introduction, containing Background of the Study, Statement
of the Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research, and Organization of
the Thesis. Chapter Two is Theoretical Framework, presenting the approach for
analysing the data. The next part is Chapter Three, which consists of the data
analysis and the results. The last chapter is Chapter Four, which is Conclusion,
which includes some personal comments on the findings. After this, the thesis
ends with Bibliography and Appendix.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I would like to give my personal opinion and comments on
the findings elaborated in Chapter Three. After analysing the sixteen riddles,
which are taken from five different websites in the Internet, it is revealed what
words or phrases make the riddles ambiguous, what kinds of ambiguity are found
in the riddles and what causes the ambiguity. Furthermore, it is also shown how
the ambiguity in the riddle contributes to the script incongruity which produces
humour.
From the sixteen data that have been analysed, I find that there are nineteen
ambiguities in this analysis. The lexical ambiguity is the kind of ambiguity which
is most frequently used by the riddle-makers, as there are twelve data having
lexical ambiguity. The second most frequently-used type of ambiguity is syntactic
ambiguity. There are six data containing syntactic ambiguity. In addition, there is
only one riddle containing the type known as referential ambiguity.
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In my opinion, the riddle-makers tend to use lexical ambiguity in their
riddles. It can be seen that lexical ambiguity is more frequently used than the
other types of ambiguity. In my opinion, this is absolutely a good thing because
when a riddle-maker uses more words in the types of lexical ambiguity, it means
that he or she is rich in vocabularies. Furthermore, it also shows the riddlemaker’s creative skills, as it is not an easy thing and it needs high creativity in
making a good riddle. On the other hand, for the readers, riddles with lexical
ambiguities demand that the reader has a wide vocabulary. In this case, it is clear
that there is a good academic side to riddles containing ambiguity.
The next point is the causes of the three types of ambiguity. There are two
causes of lexical ambiguity. The first one is homonymy, while the second one is
literal and figurative meaning. I find that homonymy is the major cause in this
finding, seeing that there are seven data containing homonymy and five data
containing ambiguity of the literal and figurative meaning. Then, for the syntactic
ambiguity, there are four data using certain function words, one data using a
construction containing the coordinator ‘and’ and one data using gerund + object
or participle modifying a noun. Lastly, one data used an indefinite referring
expression as the cause of the referential ambiguity.
In my opinion, the possible reason why the riddles which I analyse mostly
use homonymy is because there are many words in the English language that can
have more than one meaning. This is indeed an advantage for a riddle-maker to
use a homonymous word to mislead the readers. If it is compared with the literal
and figurative meaning, using the ambiguity of a figurative and literal meaning is
more difficult because there are not so many words having figurative meanings.
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When doing my analysis, I also find a special case. There are some riddles
which have more than one kind of ambiguity. This finding shows that it is
possible for a word or a phrase in a riddle to have more than one kind of
ambiguity. We can see this condition in data 6 and 13, in which they have more
than one kind of ambiguity.
In my opinion, it is also another extraordinary thing for the riddle-makers to
use more than one kind of ambiguity to be applied in their riddles. This is
absolutely not an easy thing to do. Making a riddle with one ambiguous word is
not an easy thing, let alone to think of many ambiguous words with different types
of ambiguity in one riddle. Thus, as the readers, we have to appreciate this more,
as it reveals how creative the riddle-makers are.
Furthermore, in the humour analysis, I find that there are fifteen riddles that
have two scripts of incongruity and only one riddle that has four scripts of
incongruity. Thus, it can be said that one story commonly only has two scripts of
incongruity, which leads to humour. However, data 6 shows that it is possible for
a riddle to involve more than two incongruous scripts; in this case, four scripts.
In my opinion, the cause of the existence of four scripts in the riddle is the
fact that the riddle has two types of ambiguity: the homonymy, and the literal
versus figurative meaning. The lexical ambiguity with the literal and figurative
meaning adds another meaning and another possible script to the riddle. This is
truly an extraordinary thing as the more complex the ambiguities are, the higher
the level of creativity that is needed.
It is also known that people commonly think that a riddle is something that
can only entertain or is used just for fun. Through this analysis, it is proved that a
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riddle, in fact, has an academic side, with ambiguity as its significant aspect.
Thus, the analysis of this thesis hopefully can make the readers able to realize
how linguistics contributes many things to our daily life. The study of ambiguity
can make people not only avoid miscommunication, but also acknowledge its
positive use in playful communication. Ambiguity in riddles has an important role
in playful communication as it leads to humour.
All in all, considering the significance of the study of ambiguity in riddles, I
sincerely hope that in the future there will be other studies that discuss ambiguity
in riddles, using theories espoused by other linguists. I also suggest that studies
which simply focus on lexical ambiguity as the most frequently-used type of
ambiguity should be explored more for analyzing riddles. However, my analysis
does not represent riddles in general; therefore, a further research on ambiguity in
riddles by using the same theories may still be worth doing to verify the findings
of this research analysis which shows that lexical ambiguity is the type of
ambiguity that is most frequently identified in English riddles.
(976 words)
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Texts
“Riddles.” Crafts Projects Science Experiments and Recipes for Moms with
Young Children Funology. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2013.
Stoddard, Samuel. “Brain Food.” RinkWorks. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2013.
Zipke, Marcy. “Teaching Metalinguistic Awareness and Reading Comprehension
with Riddles.” Reading Rockets. WETA, 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.
“Enchanted Learning.” Enchanted Learning. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
“Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom, A Project of The Internet TESL
Journal.” Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom. N.p., 1998. Web. 18
Feb. 2014.
References
Bach, Kent. “Ambiguity.” Ambiguity. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2013.
“Bag.” Def. 1f. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Ball.” Def. 1b. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Ball.” Def. 1g. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Bright.” Def. 1a. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Bright.” Def. 1d. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
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“Bone.” Def. 1a. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Charge.” Def. 2a. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Charge.” Def. 2e. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
Cook, Guy. Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000. Print.
“Degree.” Def. 1b. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Degree.” Def. 1d. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Funny.” Def. 1b. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Funny bone.” Def. 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005.
Print.
“Green House.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Online,
2014. Web. 1 March 2014.
Hurford, James and Brendan Heasley. Semantics: A Coursebook. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983. Print.
Kreidler, Charles W. Introduction English Semantics. London: Routledge, 1998.
Print.
Leech, Geoffrey. Semantics: The Study of Meaning. London: Penguin Books,
1981. Print.
Lyons, John. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Print.
“Pupil.” Def. 1a. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Pupil.” Def. 1c. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Ruler.” Def. 1a. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Ruler.” Def. 1b. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Save.” Def. 1a. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
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“Save.” Def. 1e. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“School.” Def. 1a. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“School.” Def. 1i. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
“Sleeping bag.” Def. 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005.
Print.
“White house.” Def. 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005.
Print.
Wierzbicka, Anna. Semantics: Primes and Universal. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996. Print.
Yule, George. The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996. Print.
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Ketika manusia menggunakan bahasa dalam berkomunikasi, termasuk di
dalamnya bahasa Inggris, akan terdapat kemungkinan munculnya ketaksaan. Hal
tersebut berpotensi menyebabkan perbedaan dalam pengertian antara pemberi dan
penerima pesan. Akan tetapi, pada kenyataannya ketaksaan tidak hanya mengarah
pada hal-hal negatif. Ketaksaan juga dapat digunakan secara positif dan kreatif
dalam penggunaan teka-teki yang menghasilkan kelucuan.
Dalam penelitian ini, saya menganalisis teka-teki yang menggunakan
ketaksaan yang menghasilkan kelucuan. Teka-teki yang saya analisis berjumlah
enam belas, yang diambil dari lima sumber di Internet, yaitu Enchanted Learning,
Funology, Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom, Reading Rockets dan
RinkWorks. Ketaksaan dalam analisis ini didasarkan pada teori Charles W.
Kreidler dalam bukunya Introduction to English Semantics dan teori humor
tentang script of incongruity dari Victor Raskin.
Setelah menganalisis enam belas teka-teki tersebut, saya menemukan ada
sembilan belas ketaksaan di dalamnya. Jenis ketaksaan yang paling banyak
ditemukan adalah jenis lexical ambiguity, dengan penyebabnya homonimi. Dari
hasil penelitian ini, dapat disimpulkan ketaksaan merupakan faktor utama dalam
menyebabkan pemahaman berbeda yang berujung pada kelucuan.
ii
Maranatha Christian University
Akhir kata, penelitian ini diharapkan dapat membuka wawasan para
pembacanya tentang ketaksaan yang ternyata dapat berfungsi positif untuk hal
edukasi dalam permainan bahasa terutama teka-teki.
iii
Maranatha Christian University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................i
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ..........................................................................1
Statement of the Problem ..........................................................................4
Purpose of the Study .................................................................................4
Method of Research ...................................................................................5
Organization of the Thesis ........................................................................ 5
CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .....................................6
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS OF AMBIGUITY
IN HUMOROUS RIDDLES ................................................................15
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ..................................................................40
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................44
APPENDIX ..........................................................................................................47
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APPENDIX
Table 1. List of Ambiguities in Riddles
No
Riddles
Type of Ambiguity
Why are fish so smart?
1.
Lexical ambiguity
Because they swim in schools!
Why did the student bring a king to class?
2.
Lexical ambiguity
Because his teacher told him he needed a ruler!
What kind of stamp do you have to stick on
3.
yourself?
Syntactic ambiguity
None. You stick them on envelopes.
What is the easiest way to make a banana split?
4.
Syntactic ambiguity
Cut it in half!
What did the doctor say to the patient who
5.
thought he was getting smaller?
You’ll just have to be a little patient!
47
Syntactic ambiguity
Why did the bear tiptoe through the
Syntactic and lexical
6.
campground?
ambiguity
He didn't want to wake the sleeping bags!
Q: Mr. Blue lives in the blue house, Mr. Pink
lives in the pink house, and Mr. Brown lives in
7.
the brown house. Who lives in the white
Lexical ambiguity
house?
A: The president!
8.
I am the black child of a white father, a
wingless bird, flying even to the clouds of
heaven. I give birth to tears of mourning in
pupils that meet me, even though there is no
Lexical ambiguity
cause for grief, and at once on my birth I am
dissolved into air. What am I?
Smoke.
How do you stop an elephant from charging?
9.
Take away her credit card!
Lexical ambiguity
Where do penguins go to dance?
10.
Lexical ambiguity
The snow ball!
Why did the teacher wear sunglasses?
11.
Because her students were bright!
Lexical ambiguity
Why didn't the sun go to college?
12.
Because it already had a million degrees!
48
Lexical ambiguity
Q: Tuesday, Sam and Peter went to a
restaurant to eat lunch. After eating lunch, they
13.
paid the bill. But Sam and Peter did not pay
Syntactic and referential
ambiguity
the bill, so who did?
A: Their friend, Tuesday.
Q: If a blue house is made out of blue bricks, a
yellow house is made out of yellow bricks and
14.
a pink house is made out of pink bricks, what
Lexical ambiguity
is a green house made of?
A: Glass
Why was the clown sad?
15.
She broke her funny bone!
Lexical ambiguity
Q: Why did the man put the clock in the safe?
16.
A: He wanted to save time.
49
Lexical ambiguity
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
People are social creatures; thus, they express their feelings, emotions,
thoughts, and ideas by interacting with their fellow beings. They use language to
interact with others and it is undeniable that they use language in almost every
aspect of their lives. Therefore, it can be considered that language is a very
important part in people’s lives, which cannot be separated from communication.
Anna Wierzbicka (3), in her book, Semantics: Primes and Universal, states that
the function of language is an instrument for conveying meaning.
Ideas and meanings can be expressed both in spoken and written language.
However, there is a possibility that the hearer or the reader gets a message that the
speaker or the writer does not really mean. This is so because the speaker or the
writer sometimes does not state his or her meaning clearly and explicitly, with the
result that the hearer or the reader interprets the meaning in a different way than is
intended by the speaker or the writer.
1
Maranatha Christian University
Furthermore, understanding written language is more difficult than spoken
language. If the hearer does not understand what the speaker says in his or her
utterances or speeches, the hearer can directly ask the speaker what he or she
actually means. However, if the reader does not understand what the writer has
written, he or she most probably cannot directly ask the writer. Because of the
different views and interpretations between the two sides, misunderstanding in
spoken and written language is likely to occur.
One of the sources of misunderstanding is ambiguity. Ambiguity means a
word or a phrase or a sentence that has more than one meaning (Bach). In other
words, a word or phrase or sentence can be interpreted in more than one way. The
ambiguity in a word or a phrase or a sentence usually creates confusion or
uncertainty of meaning for the reader. In support of this view, according to
Geoffrey Leech (30), an expression is said to be ambiguous when more than one
interpretation can be assigned to it. This ambiguous expression can happen in a
word, a phrase or a sentence.
In this thesis, I would like to discuss ambiguities in written riddles which
are taken from the Internet, I have selected the written riddles from five websites:
Enchanted Learning, Funology, Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom,
Reading Rockets and RinkWorks. The reason for choosing these websites is the
riddles are suitable as my data as they can be analysed by using particular
linguistic theories. A riddle is most probably quite confusing and it has an
unexpected answer. Since many riddles contain ambiguity, and ambiguity is part
of linguistics, they can also be analysed by using some theories of linguistics. In
this case, language serves an important function, not only as a means of
2
Maranatha Christian University
expressing people’s ideas, but also as something which gives pleasure to the
writer or speaker and the reader or hearer. On top of that, riddles are one of the
examples of a creative way of using language for fun. Besides this, ambiguity
plays a significant role as a technique which is commonly used to create humour,
and it is also one of the causes of misunderstanding in communication. Riddles,
then, use the misunderstanding from the ambiguity to create humour.
The title of my thesis is “Analysis of Ambiguity in Humorous Riddles.” The
reasons for choosing this topic are, firstly, ambiguity is one of the language
aspects which abound in many languages, including in the English language.
Moreover, people cannot avoid ambiguity, although there are many theories to
help people avoid it. When an ambiguity occurs in a statement, it can create a
misunderstanding. Secondly, the misunderstanding does not usually refer to a bad
thing. The misunderstanding which results from the ambiguity can be used for
something pleasant, as the ambiguity has an important role in producing humour.
Thirdly, riddle is a form of language which uses ambiguity to create a humorous
effect.
When doing my analysis, I used the ambiguity theory based on Charles W.
Kreidler. He divides ambiguity into three types: lexical ambiguity, referential
ambiguity, and syntactic ambiguity (Kreidler 55, 151, 169). My analysis also
applies the theory of script incongruity by Victor Raskin to explain the producing
of humour in the riddles. Raskin uses the term script and adopts the view that
words and sequences of words in a text act as triggers in activating particular
scripts for text processing (Cook 75).
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I believe this topic is significant to analyse. It is commonly known that
people might think that riddles are just for fun. Yet riddles have an academic side
too, as one of the significant aspects is ambiguity, which belongs to linguistics.
Therefore, the readers are expected to be able to realize and also explore how the
theoretical understanding of linguistics contributes to language patterns in English
riddles.
(810 words)
Statement of the Problem
The problems which I would like to analyse in this thesis are stated below:
1. What word or phrase makes the riddle ambiguous?
2. What kind of ambiguity can be found in the riddle?
3. What is the cause of the ambiguity?
4. How does the ambiguity in the riddle contribute to the script incongruity?
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this thesis is to answer the problems of this research which are
mentioned above. They are as follows:
1. To show the word or phrase that makes the riddle ambiguous.
2. To show the kind of ambiguity found in the riddle.
3. To show the cause of the ambiguity.
4. To find out how the ambiguity in the riddle contributes to the script
incongruity.
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Method of Research
First of all, I choose the topic of this thesis, which is ambiguity in riddles.
Then I begin to do some library and Internet research by reading some books and
searching for other materials needed which relate to the theory of ambiguity and
script incongruity. After that, I gather and choose some riddles from different
websites in the Internet which can be analysed by using some ambiguity theories
and also the theory of script incongruity. Finally, I write the research report.
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis is presented in four chapters and is preceded by the Abstract.
The first chapter is Introduction, containing Background of the Study, Statement
of the Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research, and Organization of
the Thesis. Chapter Two is Theoretical Framework, presenting the approach for
analysing the data. The next part is Chapter Three, which consists of the data
analysis and the results. The last chapter is Chapter Four, which is Conclusion,
which includes some personal comments on the findings. After this, the thesis
ends with Bibliography and Appendix.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I would like to give my personal opinion and comments on
the findings elaborated in Chapter Three. After analysing the sixteen riddles,
which are taken from five different websites in the Internet, it is revealed what
words or phrases make the riddles ambiguous, what kinds of ambiguity are found
in the riddles and what causes the ambiguity. Furthermore, it is also shown how
the ambiguity in the riddle contributes to the script incongruity which produces
humour.
From the sixteen data that have been analysed, I find that there are nineteen
ambiguities in this analysis. The lexical ambiguity is the kind of ambiguity which
is most frequently used by the riddle-makers, as there are twelve data having
lexical ambiguity. The second most frequently-used type of ambiguity is syntactic
ambiguity. There are six data containing syntactic ambiguity. In addition, there is
only one riddle containing the type known as referential ambiguity.
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In my opinion, the riddle-makers tend to use lexical ambiguity in their
riddles. It can be seen that lexical ambiguity is more frequently used than the
other types of ambiguity. In my opinion, this is absolutely a good thing because
when a riddle-maker uses more words in the types of lexical ambiguity, it means
that he or she is rich in vocabularies. Furthermore, it also shows the riddlemaker’s creative skills, as it is not an easy thing and it needs high creativity in
making a good riddle. On the other hand, for the readers, riddles with lexical
ambiguities demand that the reader has a wide vocabulary. In this case, it is clear
that there is a good academic side to riddles containing ambiguity.
The next point is the causes of the three types of ambiguity. There are two
causes of lexical ambiguity. The first one is homonymy, while the second one is
literal and figurative meaning. I find that homonymy is the major cause in this
finding, seeing that there are seven data containing homonymy and five data
containing ambiguity of the literal and figurative meaning. Then, for the syntactic
ambiguity, there are four data using certain function words, one data using a
construction containing the coordinator ‘and’ and one data using gerund + object
or participle modifying a noun. Lastly, one data used an indefinite referring
expression as the cause of the referential ambiguity.
In my opinion, the possible reason why the riddles which I analyse mostly
use homonymy is because there are many words in the English language that can
have more than one meaning. This is indeed an advantage for a riddle-maker to
use a homonymous word to mislead the readers. If it is compared with the literal
and figurative meaning, using the ambiguity of a figurative and literal meaning is
more difficult because there are not so many words having figurative meanings.
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When doing my analysis, I also find a special case. There are some riddles
which have more than one kind of ambiguity. This finding shows that it is
possible for a word or a phrase in a riddle to have more than one kind of
ambiguity. We can see this condition in data 6 and 13, in which they have more
than one kind of ambiguity.
In my opinion, it is also another extraordinary thing for the riddle-makers to
use more than one kind of ambiguity to be applied in their riddles. This is
absolutely not an easy thing to do. Making a riddle with one ambiguous word is
not an easy thing, let alone to think of many ambiguous words with different types
of ambiguity in one riddle. Thus, as the readers, we have to appreciate this more,
as it reveals how creative the riddle-makers are.
Furthermore, in the humour analysis, I find that there are fifteen riddles that
have two scripts of incongruity and only one riddle that has four scripts of
incongruity. Thus, it can be said that one story commonly only has two scripts of
incongruity, which leads to humour. However, data 6 shows that it is possible for
a riddle to involve more than two incongruous scripts; in this case, four scripts.
In my opinion, the cause of the existence of four scripts in the riddle is the
fact that the riddle has two types of ambiguity: the homonymy, and the literal
versus figurative meaning. The lexical ambiguity with the literal and figurative
meaning adds another meaning and another possible script to the riddle. This is
truly an extraordinary thing as the more complex the ambiguities are, the higher
the level of creativity that is needed.
It is also known that people commonly think that a riddle is something that
can only entertain or is used just for fun. Through this analysis, it is proved that a
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riddle, in fact, has an academic side, with ambiguity as its significant aspect.
Thus, the analysis of this thesis hopefully can make the readers able to realize
how linguistics contributes many things to our daily life. The study of ambiguity
can make people not only avoid miscommunication, but also acknowledge its
positive use in playful communication. Ambiguity in riddles has an important role
in playful communication as it leads to humour.
All in all, considering the significance of the study of ambiguity in riddles, I
sincerely hope that in the future there will be other studies that discuss ambiguity
in riddles, using theories espoused by other linguists. I also suggest that studies
which simply focus on lexical ambiguity as the most frequently-used type of
ambiguity should be explored more for analyzing riddles. However, my analysis
does not represent riddles in general; therefore, a further research on ambiguity in
riddles by using the same theories may still be worth doing to verify the findings
of this research analysis which shows that lexical ambiguity is the type of
ambiguity that is most frequently identified in English riddles.
(976 words)
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Texts
“Riddles.” Crafts Projects Science Experiments and Recipes for Moms with
Young Children Funology. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2013.
Stoddard, Samuel. “Brain Food.” RinkWorks. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2013.
Zipke, Marcy. “Teaching Metalinguistic Awareness and Reading Comprehension
with Riddles.” Reading Rockets. WETA, 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.
“Enchanted Learning.” Enchanted Learning. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
“Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom, A Project of The Internet TESL
Journal.” Jokes in English for the ESL/EFL Classroom. N.p., 1998. Web. 18
Feb. 2014.
References
Bach, Kent. “Ambiguity.” Ambiguity. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2013.
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“Bone.” Def. 1a. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
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“Save.” Def. 1e. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2005. Print.
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