Analysis of A Ambiguities in 'The Sun' Newspaper.
ABSTRACT
Dalam penulisan skripsi ini, topik yang saya angkat adalah tentang
ketaksaan, yaitu perbedaan mengenai makna dari suatu bentuk baik secara lisan
maupun tulisan. Secara lebih spesifik, saya tertarik untuk membahas tentang
tentang ketaksaan dalam bentuk tulisan. Dalam pembahasan ketaksaan ini saya
mengacu pada teori yang ditulis oleh Charles W. Kreidler dalam bukunya berjudul
Introducing English Semantics. Sementara itu saya mengambil beberapa data dari
sebuah koran terbitan Inggris yang berjudul The Sun. Dalam beberapa artikel
dapat ditemukan ketaksaan yang mungkin terjadi walaupun mungkin tanpa
disadari oleh penulis artikel tersebut.
Adanya penulisan yang bersifat taksa bukanlah suatu pelanggaran yang
dilakukan oleh penulis. Walaupun demikian, hal tersebut pada akhirnya akan
menyebabkan perbedaan interpretasi khususnya bagi para pembaca. Tanpa adanya
penjelasan lebih lanjut, pembaca terkadang dituntut untuk berpikir dan
menganalisis sendiri fakta sebenarnya di balik ketaksaan yang terjadi.
Dalam skripsi ini, ada 3 jenis ketaksaan, yaitu lexical, referential, dan
syntactic. Ketiganya dapat dibagi lagi menjadi beberapa cabang yang merupakan
faktor penyebab terjadinya suatu ketaksaan. Dalam menganalis ketaksaan
tersebut, konteks memegang peranan yang sangat besar dalam menentukan
interpretasi yang sebenarnya.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………… … iii
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………….
iv
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study………………………………………...
Statement of the Problem………………………………………...
Purpose of the Study…………………………………………….
Methods of Research…………………………………………….
Organization of the Thesis……………………………………….
1
4
4
4
5
CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK………………
6
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS OF AMBIGUITIES IN THE SUN
NEWSPAPER…………………………………
13
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION…………………………………
39
BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………..
43
APPENDICES……………………………………………………………. 46
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APPENDIX
Data 1:
Baby Peter‘s Gran Signs Petition
The Gran of tragic Baby P last night said she would sign The Sun’s
petition calling for longer sentences for the tot’s abusers. The distraught woman
branded her own daughter “pure evil” after she and her child-raping boyfriend
were jailed over the death of the youngster. But like so many Sun readers, she was
outraged when little Peter’s monstrous mother, 27, was told she could apply for
parole in three years. Now 35,499 readers have signed our petition.
The grandmother said of her daughter: “I am the first in the queue when it
comes to getting her sentence increased.
“She may think I’m a traitor but I will be signing your petition. My
daughter is pure evil. I’ve lost my grandson.”
Baby P’s mother was given an indeterminate sentence at London’s Old
Bailey. But she has already served two years of her five-year minimum term on
remand. The lad’s 32-year-old stepdad was jailed for ten years, but could be out
in eight. Lodger Jason Owen, 37 — who turned a blind eye to the abuse — was
jailed for or a minimum of three years but could be free in two. Members of the
public voiced their outrage outside the court on Friday.
The National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children, murdered
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schoolgirl Sarah Payne’s mum Sara, and other campaigners have also condemned
the sentences as too lenient. Two thousand people an hour have been logging on
to sign our petition demanding that Justice Secretary Jack Straw and the Attorney
General increase the jail terms.
“By last night 35,499 had signed our petition. The numbers are expected
to be bolstered by tens of thousands of readers who have posted the slip, in the
Sun newspaper, to us.”
Baby P died in agony in August 2007 after months of brutal torture,
sustaining 50 injuries. He suffered a broken back and eight smashed ribs right
under the noses of social workers in Haringey, North London. The angelic 17month-old was also punched so hard in the mouth he swallowed a tooth.
Yet it emerged over the weekend that in a letter to a pen pal from her
cell at HMP Holloway, Baby P’s mum offered TIPS on bringing up kids. She
also described her cushy life in jail, where she slobs around watching daytime TV
shows and doing Sudoku puzzles.
Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was murdered in 2000
by paedophile Roy Whiting, said: “I am sickened to learn of the pitiful tariffs
handed down to the individuals directly responsible for this baby’s death. They
are wicked, loathsome and unquestionably on a par with every child killer in the
country. These laughable prison terms have enraged the public. And it’s an insult
to the all-too-short life of a harmless 17-month-old. As a mother, I implore the
relevant authorities to reconsider their decisions. This is all about justice for
Baby P.
Sun online readers have also been venting their outrage. One user, whose
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screen name is tillytuppence, wrote: “This light sentence does not reflect in any way the
seriousness of this crime. It certainly does not take into account the unimaginable
suffering of a little boy.”
Bert123456 said: “I’m sickened. When will these lawmakers, judges, and
politicians get a feel for the mood in this country? Is that really the paltry price
for a child’s life?”
And Sweet-student wrote: “The problem is people are no longer scared
of the judicial system. These evil people will live a comfortable life in prison and
want for nothing. The only appropriate sentence would be life without the
possibility of parole.”
AComment90 added: “Britain is lost in red tape.”
Data 2:
Executed Pair Suffered Terribly
A restaurant worker was jailed for life today after being found guilty of
butchering two Chinese graduates. Guang Hui Cao will serve a minimum of 33
years in prison for killing Xi Zhou and Zhen Xing Yang, both 25, at their home in
Newcastle, on August 7 last year. Earlier today, a jury at Newcastle Crown Court
found the 31-year-old guilty of two counts of murder after a three-week trial.
Sentencing him, Mr. Justice Wilkie said “They were crimes "of
exceptionally high seriousness" that would have involved "horrifying and
barely imaginable suffering".
The popular couple — known by their anglicized names of Kevin Yang
and Cici Zhou — were found by friends two days after they were killed. Miss
Zhou was found lying face down on a bed. Her killer had bound her wrists with
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tape and then hit her over the head with a heavy weapon, possibly a hammer. A
piece of towel was stuffed into her mouth, which had been taped shut. She
suffocated around 90 minutes after the ordeal began. Mr. Yang was discovered in
another bedroom, having been hit with a hammer in the face and head. His throat
was slashed despite him being already unconscious.
The court heard that the couple could have been killed for their part in a
lucrative internet betting operation which saw £233,000 pass through their bank
accounts in three years.
Mr. Yang was involved in sending information from live football matches
to Chinese gamblers who benefited from a TV time delay of several seconds,
allowing them to bet on events already knowing the outcome. He also supplied
fake education certificates and other documents to Chinese students who wanted
to enroll on education courses in the UK, or get jobs on returning to China.
Cao, of Morpeth, Northumberland, had pretended he wanted to sub-let a
room in their flat to make contact with the couple before killing them. After the
murder, he changed his clothes and fled from the property with laptop computers
and mobile phones which linked him to the couple. The phones were found
dumped in a nearby park by two boys, with the batteries and the sim cards
missing.
Passing sentence Mr. Justice Wilkie said the couple had been killed
because they had crossed people involved in illegal betting scams and the
provision of forged documents.
Sentencing Cao, the judge said: "Guang Hui Cao, you have been convicted
by this jury of the murders of Xi Zhou and Zhen Xing Yang.”
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“Your own counsel rightly in his address to the jury described each
murder as instances of extreme savagery and brutality. But they were more than
that. I am satisfied that this was an execution carried out against two young
people who had become involved in organized criminal activities and involved in
dishonest betting and the provision of bogus documentation.”
“In some way they have crossed those who were involved in organizing
these criminal activities and were punished by them and held up as an example
being murdered in a clearly calculated and savage way.”
"In the case of Xi Zhou she was subjected to the ordeal of suffocation by
having a large piece of cloth rammed into her mouth and having her scull
fractured three ways. It must have involved horrifying and barely imaginable
suffering before she was rendered unconscious. In this way a clear message was
being sent to those who were involved in this scam of not to cross them."
The judge said Cao was involved in the physical preparation and
carrying out of the murders, which he described as an "assassination".
He said the defendant had "wormed" his way into the couple's home and
had sneaked the weapons with which they would be killed into their flat.
The judge added: "You lied to the police. You have not spoken or given
any information which might lead to the others involved."
The judge sentenced Cao to life imprisonment and told him he would
serve a minimum of 33 years. If he is ever released he will be immediately
deported. As Cao was led from the dock he shouted at the jurors in Mandarin:
"You've killed me. You're murdering me."
He was then forcibly dragged from the dock by six dock officers.
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Data 3:
Britney Attends Cousin’s Wedding
Its all go in the life of Britney Spears. The pop star - who is due to arrive
in London next week for the UK leg of her Circus world tour - stopped off in
Lousiana at the weekend to be an honorary bridesmaid for her cousin's wedding.
The mum-of-two made a low-key appearance for Laura Lynne Covington's
ceremony in the small town of Amite on Saturday.
A wedding guest revealed: "When her brother walked her down the aisle,
she looked stunningly calm and beautiful. She was very pretty, low-key. She was
not the center of everything, just pretty and calm and collected."
The nuptials took place at the United Methodist Church, the same church
where the funeral for Covington's mother Sandra took place in January 2007. At
the wedding reception Spears was seen hanging out with her sister and fellow
bridesmaid Jamie Lynn, who brought her daughter Maddie along for the
occasion.
The guest said the pair: "Sat at a table off to the side and visited with local
people she knew. There was no fanfare. With all the star power Britney and her
family command, it was still the bride's day."
Data 4:
The Bastard Brother
Sadistic Jason Owen was a cruel manipulator who had a sinister influence
on the already twisted brother who worshipped him. The cowardly thug used
simple giant Steven Barker to protect him when they lived on a tough council
estate.
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Owen, 37 - who had changed his name from Barker to Owen years before
the Baby P horror - became a member of the National Front.
Childhood friends said his extremist links impressed his younger brother,
who later became obsessed with Nazis. Steven Barker taught tragic Baby Peter to
perform a "Sieg Heil" salute as a sick joke. Last night even their own father
branded the brothers "monsters".
One former friend told The Sun: "Steven was like any kid who idolized
his older brother. The trouble was that his older brother was just about the
worst role model you could wish for. When they were apart they were bad
enough, but put them together and they became pure evil."
There was a chilling hint of what was to come when the brothers were
arrested in November 1995 for allegedly torturing their own grandmother.
The pair were said to have locked 82-year-old Hilda Barker in her wardrobe
while demanding she change her will in their favor.
The terrified pensioner even claimed her grandsons wore Guy Fawkes
masks to terrorize her before beating her black and blue. Mrs. Barker was so
shaken by her ordeal she was moved to a care home from her house in Whitstable,
Kent. But neither brother was ever brought to justice after their grandmother fell
ill with pneumonia and the case was dropped. She died in January 1996 and her
will was later ruled to be invalid.
Mrs. Barker's neighbour, Jacqueline Cole, 58, said: "Every time they came
she was bruised. She was frightened every time they came down. She was black
and blue when they were here.”
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Data 5 & 6:
Sis Dies After Lad in Egypt
The little sister of a schoolboy killed in a car crash in Egypt died from her
injuries. Ten-year-old Courtney Bainbridge's parents were by her side in a Cairo
hospital.
She was on holiday with 12-year-old brother Daniel and mum Louise
when the accident happened last week. Dad David, who is separated from his
wife, flew out to be with her as she fought for life.
Daniel was buried among the Pyramids on Thursday while friends and
relatives held a candlelit vigil at home to coincide with his funeral. Tribute sites
have been set up on social website Facebook in memory of the children, from
Oxclose, Washington, Tyne and Wear.
Data 7&11:
Dad ‘Killed Girl To End Rape Pain’
A dad stabbed his teenage daughter to death to end her suffering after
she was raped, it was claimed today. Gary Fisher, 48, had planned the murder of
his daughter for months before carrying it out, a court was told.
Fisher is said to have driven Chanelle Sasha Jones, 17, to a secluded pub
car park near her home in Cardigan, west Wales, on August 2 last year. He then
violently murdered her with a butcher's knife as she sat in the passenger seat of his
Ford Fiesta, it is alleged.
The jury were told that Fisher drove around west Wales with her bloodsoaked body in the car for more than seven hours before being stopped by police.
Cops found Chanelle's body in the passenger foot well. Fisher, separated from his
wife, Jane Jones, was taken to hospital suffering from injuries.
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Christopher Clee, prosecuting, said that in the aftermath of the murder
Fisher, who was visiting his children for the week, repeatedly told people what he
had done. Mr. Clee said that while in hospital he told a nurse that he had "stabbed
her because she was in so much pain".
Once released from hospital, he was interviewed by a psychiatric specialist
and a social worker. Mr. Clee said: "He gave them a graphic account of the killing
of his daughter. He said at various stages that his daughter had told him that she
wanted to die.
"He said that he had planned it for two-and-half months."
He allegedly said: "I felt that she was suffering and I wanted to help her
die."
Once Fisher was transferred into custody he immediately told officers a
similar story about his daughter's death.
"He told the police that she had been raped and that she could not live with
the thought of that," Mr. Clee said. Mr. Clee said the teenager had never made any
such report to cops.
He did acknowledge that she been admitted to hospital after taking drug
overdoses in December 2006 and February 2009. But he said that neither incident
had been seen as a real attempt to kill her self.
Earlier the jury heard that, on a visit to Wales one month earlier, Fisher
called his daughter a "slag" because she did not want to go out with him. He had
taken all three children camping during that visit, using amphetamines himself
and offering them to his daughter and her teenage brother.
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Fisher, of Solihull, West Midlands, denies a single charge of murder. The
case, which is scheduled to run for at least two weeks, continues.
Data 8:
Money Can Buy Everything But Happiness
A £9MILLION Lottery winner drank himself to death after sinking into a
self-destructive nightmare in the clutches of conmen. Hard-working family man
Keith Gough, 58, and his wife Louise scooped the jackpot five years ago.
It should have brought happiness. But instead he was cheated out of a
fortune and his 25-year marriage was wrecked. Last week he died a penniless,
lonely death with just a bottle for company.
A close friend said yesterday: "It's very sad. He's a testament to the saying,
money can buy you everything - except happiness.
"They were an ordinary couple with a decent but simple lifestyle. The
money ruined that and killed Keith. It went to his head and he couldn't handle it.
The whole thing is a tragedy."
Former bakery worker Keith's hell began after Louise bought a winning
ticket in 2005. They bought a £500,000 home near the semi where they had lived
happily with their teenage son. But Keith began splashing out, buying racehorses,
leasing an executive box at Aston Villa and driving a BMW. His downfall really
began when he was targeted by a gang of conmen, who "smelled blood" when he
met them in the summer of 2006.
Posing as property investors, they plundered his bank accounts with the
aid of a gold-digging woman accomplice. The con artists drew naive Keith into
drinking into the early hours at hotels and turned him into an alcoholic.
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They hired a woman in her mid-20s to trick Keith into thinking she was
his girlfriend. She spent nights with him in an apartment he rented after splitting
with sickened Louise in May 2007.
She kept him topped up with bottles of wine and they spent hours over
boozy lunches. Keith even handed her his cash point card and the blonde would
withdraw £200 a day. She bragged to a friend: "He'll do anything for me. I just go
to the cash point and get what I want. I've never dressed so well. I'm just there to
keep him sweet.
"He's asked me to marry him. But I've no feelings for him. It's just a job.
I'll do it until the money runs out."
The gang set Keith up to buy deliberately-overpriced land. He also rented
a £1million home in Cheshire, with a £15,000-a-year gardener and a £25,000
chauffeur.
Sun reporters warned him he was being conned in 2007. But he
slurred: "Leave me to it. I'm having a good time. I know what I'm doing."
At the end of that year Louise's divorce went through. Friends from his
home town Bridgnorth, Shrops, begged Keith to seek help. He went into rehab but
fraudster James Prince persuaded him to quit.
Prince was jailed for three years last June after a court heard that Keith
signed over £700,000 to him between August 2006 and July 2008.
By late last year Keith, now suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, was
reduced to living in a nephew's back bedroom. He had a suspected heart attack
there while drinking alone last week and died on Saturday.
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He had told The Sun last year: "My life was brilliant but the Lottery ruined
everything. My dreams turned to dust. What's the point of having money when it
sends you to bed crying?"
Former secretary Louise, 55, who invested her share of the cash wisely,
refused to comment.
Data 9&10:
Tory Tax Help For 4m Married
Tax bills for four million poorer married couples will be slashed by the
Tories, Shadow Chancellor George Osborne told The Sun last night. It fulfils a
long-standing promise by David Cameron to reward marriage - and will benefit
straight and gay couples.
Husbands or wives who do not work will be able to pass on £750 of
their tax-free earning allowance to working spouses. Those on between £7,000
and £44,000 a year - a third of British couples - will be £150 a year better off. The
policy is aimed at building strong families and will be the flagship of the Tory
election manifesto.
The saving is also available to gay men and women in civil
partnerships. But people in the higher income tax bracket will not be allowed to
transfer their allowances. Mr. Osborne told The Sun: "I'm delighted we can offer
this. It goes to the heart of our beliefs about the importance of the family.
"It's also realistic, given the damage Labour has done to the nation's
finances." The cost has been calculated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies at
£550million. It will be met entirely by a new tax on risky loans taken out by
greedy banks, announced by Mr. Cameron two weeks ago.
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A senior Tory said: "It's not for everyone or as generous as we'd like. But
it helps those who really need it and that's what matters."
Data 12:
Fall Girl Lives, Thanks to Aston
A woman survived a horror fall from a first-floor window - after landing
on her lover's Aston Martin. Lucky Jade Bates, 22, escaped with a leg injury after
tumbling backwards as she partied at Jasvir Deo's plush pad.
She landed on the bonnet of his new £140,000 DB9 sports car - which was
left with a huge dent. A friend said: "There was a huge scream and Jasvir looked
outside to see Jade lying on his car. He was frantic. If the Aston hadn't had such a
long bonnet, she could have been paralysed or dead. The car saved her."
Her 12ft fall from an open bedroom window happened at 7am at the
Aberdeen townhouse. Jasvir, 28, rang 999 and Jade was taken to hospital by
ambulance. She was recovering at home yesterday.
Jasvir is thought to have upgraded from an Audi R8 weeks earlier. He was
said to be "distressed" at the fall. The pal said: "They were celebrating a friend's
birthday. The guys were in the kitchen and the girls were upstairs. It appears to
have been just an accident. Jasvir just bought the car and there seemed to be
problems with electrics. It'll cost a lot more to fix now."
Data 13:
Comedy Cult Hero in Cancer Fight Chat
The comedian behind cult comic character Frank Sidebottom has
revealed he is being treated for cancer. In a light-hearted blog entry written as
Frank - famed for his outsized papier mache head - creator Chris Sievey told fans
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a tumor had been found in his chest. The comic, in his 50s, said: "Well, after all
the hospital tests and scans, and X-rays and cameras down me etc, etc, yes, I've
got cancer.
"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere just yet, and I'm looking forward to
another 25 years in fantastic semi-professional show business first. So I've got a
few weeks off from live shows now to have a couple of ops and get shut." The
tumor, close to Chris's aesophagus, affects his ability to eat.
Wannabe pop star Frank is known for humorous cover versions and songs
on his hobbies - which he describes as "really fantastic". He became a staple of
the college comedy circuit in the 1980s - regularly appearing on Mark Radcliffe's
former Radio 1 show - and still has a loyal following. And in the blog he joked:
"For the record, my next release will not be Chemotherapy Is Really Fantastic."
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Language is a tool that people use to communicate. It is the tool for people
to communicate with others. It is the most important part and it cannot be
separated from people’s communication. Although sometimes it is not always
easy to convey what we really mean, language is the main tool for people to say
their purposes. Language is “a human system of communication which uses
structured vocal sounds and can be embodied in other media such as writing,
print, and physical signs” (McArthur 571). Language itself consists of words,
phrases, clauses, and sentences. Each element has their own meaning and we can
find many interpretations behind the speaker’s speech. For example, a word can
denote something abstract such as fear and kindness. A word can also denote a
person or thing with a concrete meaning like builder and table. In short, a word
may have numerous meanings and it may have different meanings for different
people.
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In this thesis, I decide to discuss ambiguities in some articles which are
taken from an Internet newspsper, The Sun. I choose The Sun because it contains
a lot of interesting topics in a lot of fields, especially topics that happen and
mostly talked about in Britain. Besides, the topics are always written in daily
language so that the readers will find them easier to follow when they read them.
Ambiguity refers to a word or a sentence that contains more than one
meaning. When we read something ambiguous, we always get confused because it
can be interpreted differently. Ambiguity cannot be avoided. It can happen when
the writer uses unclear definitions. Based on The Oxford Companion to English
Language by Tom McArthur, ambiguity deals with “actual or potential
uncertainty of meaning, especially if a word, phrase or sentence can be understood
in two ways” (32).
Ambiguity can happen both in oral and written texts. In an oral texts, we
may find ambiguity in people’s speech. Sometimes when we are speaking with
someone else, we say something ambiguous and a second afterwards we realize
that there is misunderstanding between us as the speaker and our hearer. On the
other hand, it can also make us confused because we do not know what the real
meaning of the ambiguous part is. Meanwhile, ambiguity in written texts deal
with the ambiguity that appears in any kinds of writings such as articles in
newspapers or magazines, novels, short stories, et cetera. In my thesis I would like
to discuss ambiguity which is found in written texts. It is easier to analyze the
ambiguity in written texts than in oral ones.
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I choose ambiguity as the topic of my thesis because ambiguity often
causes a lot of misunderstandings. On the one hand, some people can understand
the intended message of the text, but on the other hand some other people tend to
get a different meaning. It is possible that ambiguity will make us laugh because
the meaning is funny when people interpret it differently from what is actually
intended.
For this thesis, I would like to concentrate on the meanings that are hidden
behind the words or sentences which contain ambiguity. I will use the role of
context to show that the ambiguity can eventually be restricted into having one
single meaning. In addition, I would like to restrict the topic of my thesis on the
ambiguities contained in words and phrases.
I wish that this thesis will give a benefit both for the readers who read my
thesis and for the article’s writers. For the readers, they can be more aware about
what ambiguity is and everything related to it. And for article writers, it is greatly
hoped that they may be more careful to choose suitable words when they are
writing articles so that the result of their writing will not make the readers have
wrong or different interpretations from the meaning that is actually intended.
The field of study of my thesis belongs to semantics. Semantics deals with
the study of meaning of words or sentences. “Semantics is used for the study of
meaning in natural language such as word meaning and sentence meaning” (Mey
830). By studying semantics we learn how language is used to convey meaning
and how language and people interact to produce and express meaning. I am
interested to discuss semantics because it contains a lot of important things to be
learned. Semantics itself has many branches. We study not only homonyms,
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hyponyms, synonyms, or antonyms, but also the ambiguity of words or sentences,
the changes in meaning, entailment, definiteness, paraphrases, and many others.
Number of words: 765
Statement of the Problem
In this thesis, there are three problems that I would like to discuss. They
are:
1. What kinds of ambiguities are found in the articles?
2. What are the possibilities of meaning that can be interpreted?
3. What is the intended meaning of each of the ambiguous phrases or words
based on the context?
Purpose of the Study
Through this thesis I want to show:
1. The kinds of ambiguities found in the articles.
2. The possibilities of meaning that can be interpreted.
3. The intended meaning of each of the ambiguous phrases or words based
on the context.
Method of Research
First, I read some reference books. Second, I browse several data from the
Internet and select some articles that contain ambiguities. Then I gather the
relevant data from the source. Next, I analyze the data by using the theories I have
got from the reference books. Finally, I write the research report.
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Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One is the Background of the
Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research, and
Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two is the Theoretical Framework, which
contains some explanation about Semantics focusing on one of its topics,
ambiguity. Chapter Three is the analysis of the ambiguities found in the articles.
Chapter Four is the conclusion of the whole analysis. It also contains my
comments, opinions, and some suggestions for future studies. The last is the
Bibliography, which lists the references and the sources of the data I use in
writing this thesis, and the Appendix, which contains the complete news articles
as the data.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
As ambiguities clearly exist around us, both in oral and written texts, I am
certain that ambiguity cannot be avoided easily. Ambiguities happen not only
when we are having a conversation which can cause misinterpretation between the
speaker and the hearer, but also when we write a text. We can find ambiguity in
people’s speech or in newspapers, magazines, and any other texts. Whether we
realize it or not, there is always something ambiguous happening almost every
day in our daily life.
Generally discussing ambiguities is not only interesting but also necessary.
What is more, ambiguity is quite popular and known by a lot of people. Ambiguity
is considered as something interesting because it often causes misinterpretation
among the people because talking about ambiguity is also talking about the
meaning of something. Furthermore, it becomes necessary when in the end people
want to know what the ambiguous parts actually meant. Talking about ambiguities
is like exploring something that is not easy to be resolved. This is so because
ambiguity,
like
the
other
linguistic
aspects,
has
its
own
part
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to be discussed. Many linguists have their own understanding of what ambiguity
is about and they also have different views in analyzing the ambiguity.
In the newspaper The Sun it is not easy to find out what the journalists
intend to say in their writings. Sometimes the readers have to be smart to catch the
intended meaning of the articles. It is interesting to notice that an ambiguity may
also occur in the title of an article.
In my research I find two data of ambiguity which comes from the title,
namely Sister Dies After Lad in Egypt and Fall Girl Lives, Thanks to Aston. In
my opinion, this might happen because of two things. Firstly, the writer wants to
make the title sound unique so that the readers are eager to read it. Secondly,
writing the title is usually limited by space. The writer has to make the title as
short as possible but still looks unique so that people will be attracted to read it.
Having analyzed the data, I find out that all the three types of ambiguity
which have been discussed in the previous chapter are found. As mentioned in
chapter two according to Charles W. Kreidler, there are three types of ambiguity.
They are lexical, referential, and syntactic ambiguity. Each type of ambiguity is
divided into other sub-categories. However, there are only several structures that
are suitable with the data I have found. For further research, I suggest that for
those who have great interest in analyzing ambiguities can find more variable data
which contain more various types of ambiguities that I have not discussed in this
thesis.
The first type of ambiguity that I found is lexical ambiguity. There are two
types of lexical ambiguity, namely those caused by homonyms and by figurative
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sense and literal sense. However, in this research I only find ambiguities caused
by homonymous words. When searching the data, I find that there are quite a lot
of ambiguities that are caused by homonyms. Nevertheless, in this research I take
two data as the representatives. Meanwhile, in this thesis there is no data which
involves ambiguity caused by figurative sense and literal sense because in fact
there are very few idioms that can be interpreted both figuratively and literally so
that they may cause an ambiguity.
The next type of ambiguity that I find is referential ambiguity. Referential
ambiguity has four structures. From those four, anaphora, or also known as
unclear pronouns, is the most dominant factor causing the ambiguities. From all
the data I have got, there are six data which can be analyzed through this structure.
However, I do not find any data in the articles which contain the other three
structures of referential ambiguity. Although not all structures of this type can be
found in the data, referential ambiguity is the most dominant type of ambiguity
which is often found in The Sun articles.
The last type of ambiguity is syntactic ambiguity. Out of all those types of
ambiguity, this type is the most difficult type of ambiguity to analyse. To make it
worse, it is also difficult to find the right interpretation. Syntactic ambiguity is
divided into three kinds of structures, they are surface ambiguity, deep structure
ambiguity, and prepositional phrase attachment. In this research, there are only
two data which belong to surface ambiguity and three data which belong to
prepositional phrase attachment, while there is no data that can be analyzed
through deep structure ambiguity. In my opinion this is something that is quite
difficult to detect.
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Sometimes, there is a case where an ambiguity can happen because the
readers do not have enough background knowledge of something. For instance,
when an article puts a brand name of a thing in it, some people who read the article
may consider that the brand name must absolutely refer to a specific thing that
they are familiar with. Thus, there will be no ambiguity. Yet, for some people the
brand name of the thing will be ambiguous when they never hear about such a
thing. As a result, ambiguity can actually be avoided if there is enough background
knowledge which is owned by the readers.
In finding the real meaning of each possibility I analyze, reading the whole
content of the article is certainly very helpful. It is because the content usually
contains some information that can be used as clues to prove which of all the
possibilities is the most suitable meaning. Analyzing ambiguity through the
content is the best way to solve this ambiguity problem. However, in some cases,
not all the contexts are explicitly stated to show us the actual meaning among all
the possibilities meanings of the ambiguity. When this happens, it will not be easy
for us to get right intended meaning. Yet, it can also be that the context needed is
implicitly stated, which makes it rather difficult to detect the right intended
meaning.
Number of words: 1009
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
References
McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. New York
Oxford University Press, 1992.
Mey, Jacob L. Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. London: Elsevier Science
Ltd, 1992.
Kreidler, Charles W. Introducing English Semantics. London: Routledge 11 New
Fetter Lane, 1998.
The Oxford Learner‟s Dictionary. Third Edition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. 1983.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Third Edition. Essex: Pearson
Education Limited. 2001.
Electronic Publications
France, Anthony. ”Baby Peter‟s Gran Signs Petition.”
The Sun 25 May 2009. 26 May 2009.
.
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Watson, Leon. “Executed Pair Suffered Terribly.”
The Sun 19 May 2009. 20 May 2009.
.
Lazzeri, Antonella. “If Maddie Still Alive.”
The Sun 4 May 2009. 4 May 2009.
.
“Britney Attends Cousin‟s Wedding.” The Sun
25 May 2009. 5 June 2009.
.
Wells, Tom. “The Bastard Brother.”
The Sun 11 August 2009. 11 August 2009.
.
“Sis Dies After Lad in Egypt.” The Sun
19 August 2009. 19 August 2009.
.
“Dad „Killed Girl To End Rape Pain‟.” The Sun
1 March 2010. 1 March 2010.
.
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Parker, Andrew. “Money Can Buy Everything But Happiness”. The Sun
The Sun 3 April 2010. 3 April 2010.
.
Dunn, Tom Newton. “Tory Tax Help For 4m Married”. The Sun
The Sun 10 April 2010. 10 April 2010.
.
Millard, Neil. “Fall Girl Lives, Thank to Aston”. The Sun
The Sun 13 May 2010.13 May 2010.
Crick, Andy. “Comedy Cult Hero in Cancer Fight Chat”. The Sun
The Sun 16 May 2010. 16 May 2010.
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Dalam penulisan skripsi ini, topik yang saya angkat adalah tentang
ketaksaan, yaitu perbedaan mengenai makna dari suatu bentuk baik secara lisan
maupun tulisan. Secara lebih spesifik, saya tertarik untuk membahas tentang
tentang ketaksaan dalam bentuk tulisan. Dalam pembahasan ketaksaan ini saya
mengacu pada teori yang ditulis oleh Charles W. Kreidler dalam bukunya berjudul
Introducing English Semantics. Sementara itu saya mengambil beberapa data dari
sebuah koran terbitan Inggris yang berjudul The Sun. Dalam beberapa artikel
dapat ditemukan ketaksaan yang mungkin terjadi walaupun mungkin tanpa
disadari oleh penulis artikel tersebut.
Adanya penulisan yang bersifat taksa bukanlah suatu pelanggaran yang
dilakukan oleh penulis. Walaupun demikian, hal tersebut pada akhirnya akan
menyebabkan perbedaan interpretasi khususnya bagi para pembaca. Tanpa adanya
penjelasan lebih lanjut, pembaca terkadang dituntut untuk berpikir dan
menganalisis sendiri fakta sebenarnya di balik ketaksaan yang terjadi.
Dalam skripsi ini, ada 3 jenis ketaksaan, yaitu lexical, referential, dan
syntactic. Ketiganya dapat dibagi lagi menjadi beberapa cabang yang merupakan
faktor penyebab terjadinya suatu ketaksaan. Dalam menganalis ketaksaan
tersebut, konteks memegang peranan yang sangat besar dalam menentukan
interpretasi yang sebenarnya.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………… … iii
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………….
iv
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study………………………………………...
Statement of the Problem………………………………………...
Purpose of the Study…………………………………………….
Methods of Research…………………………………………….
Organization of the Thesis……………………………………….
1
4
4
4
5
CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK………………
6
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS OF AMBIGUITIES IN THE SUN
NEWSPAPER…………………………………
13
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION…………………………………
39
BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………..
43
APPENDICES……………………………………………………………. 46
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APPENDIX
Data 1:
Baby Peter‘s Gran Signs Petition
The Gran of tragic Baby P last night said she would sign The Sun’s
petition calling for longer sentences for the tot’s abusers. The distraught woman
branded her own daughter “pure evil” after she and her child-raping boyfriend
were jailed over the death of the youngster. But like so many Sun readers, she was
outraged when little Peter’s monstrous mother, 27, was told she could apply for
parole in three years. Now 35,499 readers have signed our petition.
The grandmother said of her daughter: “I am the first in the queue when it
comes to getting her sentence increased.
“She may think I’m a traitor but I will be signing your petition. My
daughter is pure evil. I’ve lost my grandson.”
Baby P’s mother was given an indeterminate sentence at London’s Old
Bailey. But she has already served two years of her five-year minimum term on
remand. The lad’s 32-year-old stepdad was jailed for ten years, but could be out
in eight. Lodger Jason Owen, 37 — who turned a blind eye to the abuse — was
jailed for or a minimum of three years but could be free in two. Members of the
public voiced their outrage outside the court on Friday.
The National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children, murdered
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schoolgirl Sarah Payne’s mum Sara, and other campaigners have also condemned
the sentences as too lenient. Two thousand people an hour have been logging on
to sign our petition demanding that Justice Secretary Jack Straw and the Attorney
General increase the jail terms.
“By last night 35,499 had signed our petition. The numbers are expected
to be bolstered by tens of thousands of readers who have posted the slip, in the
Sun newspaper, to us.”
Baby P died in agony in August 2007 after months of brutal torture,
sustaining 50 injuries. He suffered a broken back and eight smashed ribs right
under the noses of social workers in Haringey, North London. The angelic 17month-old was also punched so hard in the mouth he swallowed a tooth.
Yet it emerged over the weekend that in a letter to a pen pal from her
cell at HMP Holloway, Baby P’s mum offered TIPS on bringing up kids. She
also described her cushy life in jail, where she slobs around watching daytime TV
shows and doing Sudoku puzzles.
Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was murdered in 2000
by paedophile Roy Whiting, said: “I am sickened to learn of the pitiful tariffs
handed down to the individuals directly responsible for this baby’s death. They
are wicked, loathsome and unquestionably on a par with every child killer in the
country. These laughable prison terms have enraged the public. And it’s an insult
to the all-too-short life of a harmless 17-month-old. As a mother, I implore the
relevant authorities to reconsider their decisions. This is all about justice for
Baby P.
Sun online readers have also been venting their outrage. One user, whose
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screen name is tillytuppence, wrote: “This light sentence does not reflect in any way the
seriousness of this crime. It certainly does not take into account the unimaginable
suffering of a little boy.”
Bert123456 said: “I’m sickened. When will these lawmakers, judges, and
politicians get a feel for the mood in this country? Is that really the paltry price
for a child’s life?”
And Sweet-student wrote: “The problem is people are no longer scared
of the judicial system. These evil people will live a comfortable life in prison and
want for nothing. The only appropriate sentence would be life without the
possibility of parole.”
AComment90 added: “Britain is lost in red tape.”
Data 2:
Executed Pair Suffered Terribly
A restaurant worker was jailed for life today after being found guilty of
butchering two Chinese graduates. Guang Hui Cao will serve a minimum of 33
years in prison for killing Xi Zhou and Zhen Xing Yang, both 25, at their home in
Newcastle, on August 7 last year. Earlier today, a jury at Newcastle Crown Court
found the 31-year-old guilty of two counts of murder after a three-week trial.
Sentencing him, Mr. Justice Wilkie said “They were crimes "of
exceptionally high seriousness" that would have involved "horrifying and
barely imaginable suffering".
The popular couple — known by their anglicized names of Kevin Yang
and Cici Zhou — were found by friends two days after they were killed. Miss
Zhou was found lying face down on a bed. Her killer had bound her wrists with
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tape and then hit her over the head with a heavy weapon, possibly a hammer. A
piece of towel was stuffed into her mouth, which had been taped shut. She
suffocated around 90 minutes after the ordeal began. Mr. Yang was discovered in
another bedroom, having been hit with a hammer in the face and head. His throat
was slashed despite him being already unconscious.
The court heard that the couple could have been killed for their part in a
lucrative internet betting operation which saw £233,000 pass through their bank
accounts in three years.
Mr. Yang was involved in sending information from live football matches
to Chinese gamblers who benefited from a TV time delay of several seconds,
allowing them to bet on events already knowing the outcome. He also supplied
fake education certificates and other documents to Chinese students who wanted
to enroll on education courses in the UK, or get jobs on returning to China.
Cao, of Morpeth, Northumberland, had pretended he wanted to sub-let a
room in their flat to make contact with the couple before killing them. After the
murder, he changed his clothes and fled from the property with laptop computers
and mobile phones which linked him to the couple. The phones were found
dumped in a nearby park by two boys, with the batteries and the sim cards
missing.
Passing sentence Mr. Justice Wilkie said the couple had been killed
because they had crossed people involved in illegal betting scams and the
provision of forged documents.
Sentencing Cao, the judge said: "Guang Hui Cao, you have been convicted
by this jury of the murders of Xi Zhou and Zhen Xing Yang.”
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“Your own counsel rightly in his address to the jury described each
murder as instances of extreme savagery and brutality. But they were more than
that. I am satisfied that this was an execution carried out against two young
people who had become involved in organized criminal activities and involved in
dishonest betting and the provision of bogus documentation.”
“In some way they have crossed those who were involved in organizing
these criminal activities and were punished by them and held up as an example
being murdered in a clearly calculated and savage way.”
"In the case of Xi Zhou she was subjected to the ordeal of suffocation by
having a large piece of cloth rammed into her mouth and having her scull
fractured three ways. It must have involved horrifying and barely imaginable
suffering before she was rendered unconscious. In this way a clear message was
being sent to those who were involved in this scam of not to cross them."
The judge said Cao was involved in the physical preparation and
carrying out of the murders, which he described as an "assassination".
He said the defendant had "wormed" his way into the couple's home and
had sneaked the weapons with which they would be killed into their flat.
The judge added: "You lied to the police. You have not spoken or given
any information which might lead to the others involved."
The judge sentenced Cao to life imprisonment and told him he would
serve a minimum of 33 years. If he is ever released he will be immediately
deported. As Cao was led from the dock he shouted at the jurors in Mandarin:
"You've killed me. You're murdering me."
He was then forcibly dragged from the dock by six dock officers.
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Data 3:
Britney Attends Cousin’s Wedding
Its all go in the life of Britney Spears. The pop star - who is due to arrive
in London next week for the UK leg of her Circus world tour - stopped off in
Lousiana at the weekend to be an honorary bridesmaid for her cousin's wedding.
The mum-of-two made a low-key appearance for Laura Lynne Covington's
ceremony in the small town of Amite on Saturday.
A wedding guest revealed: "When her brother walked her down the aisle,
she looked stunningly calm and beautiful. She was very pretty, low-key. She was
not the center of everything, just pretty and calm and collected."
The nuptials took place at the United Methodist Church, the same church
where the funeral for Covington's mother Sandra took place in January 2007. At
the wedding reception Spears was seen hanging out with her sister and fellow
bridesmaid Jamie Lynn, who brought her daughter Maddie along for the
occasion.
The guest said the pair: "Sat at a table off to the side and visited with local
people she knew. There was no fanfare. With all the star power Britney and her
family command, it was still the bride's day."
Data 4:
The Bastard Brother
Sadistic Jason Owen was a cruel manipulator who had a sinister influence
on the already twisted brother who worshipped him. The cowardly thug used
simple giant Steven Barker to protect him when they lived on a tough council
estate.
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Owen, 37 - who had changed his name from Barker to Owen years before
the Baby P horror - became a member of the National Front.
Childhood friends said his extremist links impressed his younger brother,
who later became obsessed with Nazis. Steven Barker taught tragic Baby Peter to
perform a "Sieg Heil" salute as a sick joke. Last night even their own father
branded the brothers "monsters".
One former friend told The Sun: "Steven was like any kid who idolized
his older brother. The trouble was that his older brother was just about the
worst role model you could wish for. When they were apart they were bad
enough, but put them together and they became pure evil."
There was a chilling hint of what was to come when the brothers were
arrested in November 1995 for allegedly torturing their own grandmother.
The pair were said to have locked 82-year-old Hilda Barker in her wardrobe
while demanding she change her will in their favor.
The terrified pensioner even claimed her grandsons wore Guy Fawkes
masks to terrorize her before beating her black and blue. Mrs. Barker was so
shaken by her ordeal she was moved to a care home from her house in Whitstable,
Kent. But neither brother was ever brought to justice after their grandmother fell
ill with pneumonia and the case was dropped. She died in January 1996 and her
will was later ruled to be invalid.
Mrs. Barker's neighbour, Jacqueline Cole, 58, said: "Every time they came
she was bruised. She was frightened every time they came down. She was black
and blue when they were here.”
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Data 5 & 6:
Sis Dies After Lad in Egypt
The little sister of a schoolboy killed in a car crash in Egypt died from her
injuries. Ten-year-old Courtney Bainbridge's parents were by her side in a Cairo
hospital.
She was on holiday with 12-year-old brother Daniel and mum Louise
when the accident happened last week. Dad David, who is separated from his
wife, flew out to be with her as she fought for life.
Daniel was buried among the Pyramids on Thursday while friends and
relatives held a candlelit vigil at home to coincide with his funeral. Tribute sites
have been set up on social website Facebook in memory of the children, from
Oxclose, Washington, Tyne and Wear.
Data 7&11:
Dad ‘Killed Girl To End Rape Pain’
A dad stabbed his teenage daughter to death to end her suffering after
she was raped, it was claimed today. Gary Fisher, 48, had planned the murder of
his daughter for months before carrying it out, a court was told.
Fisher is said to have driven Chanelle Sasha Jones, 17, to a secluded pub
car park near her home in Cardigan, west Wales, on August 2 last year. He then
violently murdered her with a butcher's knife as she sat in the passenger seat of his
Ford Fiesta, it is alleged.
The jury were told that Fisher drove around west Wales with her bloodsoaked body in the car for more than seven hours before being stopped by police.
Cops found Chanelle's body in the passenger foot well. Fisher, separated from his
wife, Jane Jones, was taken to hospital suffering from injuries.
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Christopher Clee, prosecuting, said that in the aftermath of the murder
Fisher, who was visiting his children for the week, repeatedly told people what he
had done. Mr. Clee said that while in hospital he told a nurse that he had "stabbed
her because she was in so much pain".
Once released from hospital, he was interviewed by a psychiatric specialist
and a social worker. Mr. Clee said: "He gave them a graphic account of the killing
of his daughter. He said at various stages that his daughter had told him that she
wanted to die.
"He said that he had planned it for two-and-half months."
He allegedly said: "I felt that she was suffering and I wanted to help her
die."
Once Fisher was transferred into custody he immediately told officers a
similar story about his daughter's death.
"He told the police that she had been raped and that she could not live with
the thought of that," Mr. Clee said. Mr. Clee said the teenager had never made any
such report to cops.
He did acknowledge that she been admitted to hospital after taking drug
overdoses in December 2006 and February 2009. But he said that neither incident
had been seen as a real attempt to kill her self.
Earlier the jury heard that, on a visit to Wales one month earlier, Fisher
called his daughter a "slag" because she did not want to go out with him. He had
taken all three children camping during that visit, using amphetamines himself
and offering them to his daughter and her teenage brother.
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Fisher, of Solihull, West Midlands, denies a single charge of murder. The
case, which is scheduled to run for at least two weeks, continues.
Data 8:
Money Can Buy Everything But Happiness
A £9MILLION Lottery winner drank himself to death after sinking into a
self-destructive nightmare in the clutches of conmen. Hard-working family man
Keith Gough, 58, and his wife Louise scooped the jackpot five years ago.
It should have brought happiness. But instead he was cheated out of a
fortune and his 25-year marriage was wrecked. Last week he died a penniless,
lonely death with just a bottle for company.
A close friend said yesterday: "It's very sad. He's a testament to the saying,
money can buy you everything - except happiness.
"They were an ordinary couple with a decent but simple lifestyle. The
money ruined that and killed Keith. It went to his head and he couldn't handle it.
The whole thing is a tragedy."
Former bakery worker Keith's hell began after Louise bought a winning
ticket in 2005. They bought a £500,000 home near the semi where they had lived
happily with their teenage son. But Keith began splashing out, buying racehorses,
leasing an executive box at Aston Villa and driving a BMW. His downfall really
began when he was targeted by a gang of conmen, who "smelled blood" when he
met them in the summer of 2006.
Posing as property investors, they plundered his bank accounts with the
aid of a gold-digging woman accomplice. The con artists drew naive Keith into
drinking into the early hours at hotels and turned him into an alcoholic.
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They hired a woman in her mid-20s to trick Keith into thinking she was
his girlfriend. She spent nights with him in an apartment he rented after splitting
with sickened Louise in May 2007.
She kept him topped up with bottles of wine and they spent hours over
boozy lunches. Keith even handed her his cash point card and the blonde would
withdraw £200 a day. She bragged to a friend: "He'll do anything for me. I just go
to the cash point and get what I want. I've never dressed so well. I'm just there to
keep him sweet.
"He's asked me to marry him. But I've no feelings for him. It's just a job.
I'll do it until the money runs out."
The gang set Keith up to buy deliberately-overpriced land. He also rented
a £1million home in Cheshire, with a £15,000-a-year gardener and a £25,000
chauffeur.
Sun reporters warned him he was being conned in 2007. But he
slurred: "Leave me to it. I'm having a good time. I know what I'm doing."
At the end of that year Louise's divorce went through. Friends from his
home town Bridgnorth, Shrops, begged Keith to seek help. He went into rehab but
fraudster James Prince persuaded him to quit.
Prince was jailed for three years last June after a court heard that Keith
signed over £700,000 to him between August 2006 and July 2008.
By late last year Keith, now suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, was
reduced to living in a nephew's back bedroom. He had a suspected heart attack
there while drinking alone last week and died on Saturday.
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He had told The Sun last year: "My life was brilliant but the Lottery ruined
everything. My dreams turned to dust. What's the point of having money when it
sends you to bed crying?"
Former secretary Louise, 55, who invested her share of the cash wisely,
refused to comment.
Data 9&10:
Tory Tax Help For 4m Married
Tax bills for four million poorer married couples will be slashed by the
Tories, Shadow Chancellor George Osborne told The Sun last night. It fulfils a
long-standing promise by David Cameron to reward marriage - and will benefit
straight and gay couples.
Husbands or wives who do not work will be able to pass on £750 of
their tax-free earning allowance to working spouses. Those on between £7,000
and £44,000 a year - a third of British couples - will be £150 a year better off. The
policy is aimed at building strong families and will be the flagship of the Tory
election manifesto.
The saving is also available to gay men and women in civil
partnerships. But people in the higher income tax bracket will not be allowed to
transfer their allowances. Mr. Osborne told The Sun: "I'm delighted we can offer
this. It goes to the heart of our beliefs about the importance of the family.
"It's also realistic, given the damage Labour has done to the nation's
finances." The cost has been calculated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies at
£550million. It will be met entirely by a new tax on risky loans taken out by
greedy banks, announced by Mr. Cameron two weeks ago.
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A senior Tory said: "It's not for everyone or as generous as we'd like. But
it helps those who really need it and that's what matters."
Data 12:
Fall Girl Lives, Thanks to Aston
A woman survived a horror fall from a first-floor window - after landing
on her lover's Aston Martin. Lucky Jade Bates, 22, escaped with a leg injury after
tumbling backwards as she partied at Jasvir Deo's plush pad.
She landed on the bonnet of his new £140,000 DB9 sports car - which was
left with a huge dent. A friend said: "There was a huge scream and Jasvir looked
outside to see Jade lying on his car. He was frantic. If the Aston hadn't had such a
long bonnet, she could have been paralysed or dead. The car saved her."
Her 12ft fall from an open bedroom window happened at 7am at the
Aberdeen townhouse. Jasvir, 28, rang 999 and Jade was taken to hospital by
ambulance. She was recovering at home yesterday.
Jasvir is thought to have upgraded from an Audi R8 weeks earlier. He was
said to be "distressed" at the fall. The pal said: "They were celebrating a friend's
birthday. The guys were in the kitchen and the girls were upstairs. It appears to
have been just an accident. Jasvir just bought the car and there seemed to be
problems with electrics. It'll cost a lot more to fix now."
Data 13:
Comedy Cult Hero in Cancer Fight Chat
The comedian behind cult comic character Frank Sidebottom has
revealed he is being treated for cancer. In a light-hearted blog entry written as
Frank - famed for his outsized papier mache head - creator Chris Sievey told fans
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a tumor had been found in his chest. The comic, in his 50s, said: "Well, after all
the hospital tests and scans, and X-rays and cameras down me etc, etc, yes, I've
got cancer.
"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere just yet, and I'm looking forward to
another 25 years in fantastic semi-professional show business first. So I've got a
few weeks off from live shows now to have a couple of ops and get shut." The
tumor, close to Chris's aesophagus, affects his ability to eat.
Wannabe pop star Frank is known for humorous cover versions and songs
on his hobbies - which he describes as "really fantastic". He became a staple of
the college comedy circuit in the 1980s - regularly appearing on Mark Radcliffe's
former Radio 1 show - and still has a loyal following. And in the blog he joked:
"For the record, my next release will not be Chemotherapy Is Really Fantastic."
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Language is a tool that people use to communicate. It is the tool for people
to communicate with others. It is the most important part and it cannot be
separated from people’s communication. Although sometimes it is not always
easy to convey what we really mean, language is the main tool for people to say
their purposes. Language is “a human system of communication which uses
structured vocal sounds and can be embodied in other media such as writing,
print, and physical signs” (McArthur 571). Language itself consists of words,
phrases, clauses, and sentences. Each element has their own meaning and we can
find many interpretations behind the speaker’s speech. For example, a word can
denote something abstract such as fear and kindness. A word can also denote a
person or thing with a concrete meaning like builder and table. In short, a word
may have numerous meanings and it may have different meanings for different
people.
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In this thesis, I decide to discuss ambiguities in some articles which are
taken from an Internet newspsper, The Sun. I choose The Sun because it contains
a lot of interesting topics in a lot of fields, especially topics that happen and
mostly talked about in Britain. Besides, the topics are always written in daily
language so that the readers will find them easier to follow when they read them.
Ambiguity refers to a word or a sentence that contains more than one
meaning. When we read something ambiguous, we always get confused because it
can be interpreted differently. Ambiguity cannot be avoided. It can happen when
the writer uses unclear definitions. Based on The Oxford Companion to English
Language by Tom McArthur, ambiguity deals with “actual or potential
uncertainty of meaning, especially if a word, phrase or sentence can be understood
in two ways” (32).
Ambiguity can happen both in oral and written texts. In an oral texts, we
may find ambiguity in people’s speech. Sometimes when we are speaking with
someone else, we say something ambiguous and a second afterwards we realize
that there is misunderstanding between us as the speaker and our hearer. On the
other hand, it can also make us confused because we do not know what the real
meaning of the ambiguous part is. Meanwhile, ambiguity in written texts deal
with the ambiguity that appears in any kinds of writings such as articles in
newspapers or magazines, novels, short stories, et cetera. In my thesis I would like
to discuss ambiguity which is found in written texts. It is easier to analyze the
ambiguity in written texts than in oral ones.
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I choose ambiguity as the topic of my thesis because ambiguity often
causes a lot of misunderstandings. On the one hand, some people can understand
the intended message of the text, but on the other hand some other people tend to
get a different meaning. It is possible that ambiguity will make us laugh because
the meaning is funny when people interpret it differently from what is actually
intended.
For this thesis, I would like to concentrate on the meanings that are hidden
behind the words or sentences which contain ambiguity. I will use the role of
context to show that the ambiguity can eventually be restricted into having one
single meaning. In addition, I would like to restrict the topic of my thesis on the
ambiguities contained in words and phrases.
I wish that this thesis will give a benefit both for the readers who read my
thesis and for the article’s writers. For the readers, they can be more aware about
what ambiguity is and everything related to it. And for article writers, it is greatly
hoped that they may be more careful to choose suitable words when they are
writing articles so that the result of their writing will not make the readers have
wrong or different interpretations from the meaning that is actually intended.
The field of study of my thesis belongs to semantics. Semantics deals with
the study of meaning of words or sentences. “Semantics is used for the study of
meaning in natural language such as word meaning and sentence meaning” (Mey
830). By studying semantics we learn how language is used to convey meaning
and how language and people interact to produce and express meaning. I am
interested to discuss semantics because it contains a lot of important things to be
learned. Semantics itself has many branches. We study not only homonyms,
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hyponyms, synonyms, or antonyms, but also the ambiguity of words or sentences,
the changes in meaning, entailment, definiteness, paraphrases, and many others.
Number of words: 765
Statement of the Problem
In this thesis, there are three problems that I would like to discuss. They
are:
1. What kinds of ambiguities are found in the articles?
2. What are the possibilities of meaning that can be interpreted?
3. What is the intended meaning of each of the ambiguous phrases or words
based on the context?
Purpose of the Study
Through this thesis I want to show:
1. The kinds of ambiguities found in the articles.
2. The possibilities of meaning that can be interpreted.
3. The intended meaning of each of the ambiguous phrases or words based
on the context.
Method of Research
First, I read some reference books. Second, I browse several data from the
Internet and select some articles that contain ambiguities. Then I gather the
relevant data from the source. Next, I analyze the data by using the theories I have
got from the reference books. Finally, I write the research report.
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Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One is the Background of the
Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research, and
Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two is the Theoretical Framework, which
contains some explanation about Semantics focusing on one of its topics,
ambiguity. Chapter Three is the analysis of the ambiguities found in the articles.
Chapter Four is the conclusion of the whole analysis. It also contains my
comments, opinions, and some suggestions for future studies. The last is the
Bibliography, which lists the references and the sources of the data I use in
writing this thesis, and the Appendix, which contains the complete news articles
as the data.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
As ambiguities clearly exist around us, both in oral and written texts, I am
certain that ambiguity cannot be avoided easily. Ambiguities happen not only
when we are having a conversation which can cause misinterpretation between the
speaker and the hearer, but also when we write a text. We can find ambiguity in
people’s speech or in newspapers, magazines, and any other texts. Whether we
realize it or not, there is always something ambiguous happening almost every
day in our daily life.
Generally discussing ambiguities is not only interesting but also necessary.
What is more, ambiguity is quite popular and known by a lot of people. Ambiguity
is considered as something interesting because it often causes misinterpretation
among the people because talking about ambiguity is also talking about the
meaning of something. Furthermore, it becomes necessary when in the end people
want to know what the ambiguous parts actually meant. Talking about ambiguities
is like exploring something that is not easy to be resolved. This is so because
ambiguity,
like
the
other
linguistic
aspects,
has
its
own
part
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to be discussed. Many linguists have their own understanding of what ambiguity
is about and they also have different views in analyzing the ambiguity.
In the newspaper The Sun it is not easy to find out what the journalists
intend to say in their writings. Sometimes the readers have to be smart to catch the
intended meaning of the articles. It is interesting to notice that an ambiguity may
also occur in the title of an article.
In my research I find two data of ambiguity which comes from the title,
namely Sister Dies After Lad in Egypt and Fall Girl Lives, Thanks to Aston. In
my opinion, this might happen because of two things. Firstly, the writer wants to
make the title sound unique so that the readers are eager to read it. Secondly,
writing the title is usually limited by space. The writer has to make the title as
short as possible but still looks unique so that people will be attracted to read it.
Having analyzed the data, I find out that all the three types of ambiguity
which have been discussed in the previous chapter are found. As mentioned in
chapter two according to Charles W. Kreidler, there are three types of ambiguity.
They are lexical, referential, and syntactic ambiguity. Each type of ambiguity is
divided into other sub-categories. However, there are only several structures that
are suitable with the data I have found. For further research, I suggest that for
those who have great interest in analyzing ambiguities can find more variable data
which contain more various types of ambiguities that I have not discussed in this
thesis.
The first type of ambiguity that I found is lexical ambiguity. There are two
types of lexical ambiguity, namely those caused by homonyms and by figurative
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sense and literal sense. However, in this research I only find ambiguities caused
by homonymous words. When searching the data, I find that there are quite a lot
of ambiguities that are caused by homonyms. Nevertheless, in this research I take
two data as the representatives. Meanwhile, in this thesis there is no data which
involves ambiguity caused by figurative sense and literal sense because in fact
there are very few idioms that can be interpreted both figuratively and literally so
that they may cause an ambiguity.
The next type of ambiguity that I find is referential ambiguity. Referential
ambiguity has four structures. From those four, anaphora, or also known as
unclear pronouns, is the most dominant factor causing the ambiguities. From all
the data I have got, there are six data which can be analyzed through this structure.
However, I do not find any data in the articles which contain the other three
structures of referential ambiguity. Although not all structures of this type can be
found in the data, referential ambiguity is the most dominant type of ambiguity
which is often found in The Sun articles.
The last type of ambiguity is syntactic ambiguity. Out of all those types of
ambiguity, this type is the most difficult type of ambiguity to analyse. To make it
worse, it is also difficult to find the right interpretation. Syntactic ambiguity is
divided into three kinds of structures, they are surface ambiguity, deep structure
ambiguity, and prepositional phrase attachment. In this research, there are only
two data which belong to surface ambiguity and three data which belong to
prepositional phrase attachment, while there is no data that can be analyzed
through deep structure ambiguity. In my opinion this is something that is quite
difficult to detect.
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Sometimes, there is a case where an ambiguity can happen because the
readers do not have enough background knowledge of something. For instance,
when an article puts a brand name of a thing in it, some people who read the article
may consider that the brand name must absolutely refer to a specific thing that
they are familiar with. Thus, there will be no ambiguity. Yet, for some people the
brand name of the thing will be ambiguous when they never hear about such a
thing. As a result, ambiguity can actually be avoided if there is enough background
knowledge which is owned by the readers.
In finding the real meaning of each possibility I analyze, reading the whole
content of the article is certainly very helpful. It is because the content usually
contains some information that can be used as clues to prove which of all the
possibilities is the most suitable meaning. Analyzing ambiguity through the
content is the best way to solve this ambiguity problem. However, in some cases,
not all the contexts are explicitly stated to show us the actual meaning among all
the possibilities meanings of the ambiguity. When this happens, it will not be easy
for us to get right intended meaning. Yet, it can also be that the context needed is
implicitly stated, which makes it rather difficult to detect the right intended
meaning.
Number of words: 1009
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
References
McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. New York
Oxford University Press, 1992.
Mey, Jacob L. Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. London: Elsevier Science
Ltd, 1992.
Kreidler, Charles W. Introducing English Semantics. London: Routledge 11 New
Fetter Lane, 1998.
The Oxford Learner‟s Dictionary. Third Edition. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. 1983.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Third Edition. Essex: Pearson
Education Limited. 2001.
Electronic Publications
France, Anthony. ”Baby Peter‟s Gran Signs Petition.”
The Sun 25 May 2009. 26 May 2009.
.
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Watson, Leon. “Executed Pair Suffered Terribly.”
The Sun 19 May 2009. 20 May 2009.
.
Lazzeri, Antonella. “If Maddie Still Alive.”
The Sun 4 May 2009. 4 May 2009.
.
“Britney Attends Cousin‟s Wedding.” The Sun
25 May 2009. 5 June 2009.
.
Wells, Tom. “The Bastard Brother.”
The Sun 11 August 2009. 11 August 2009.
.
“Sis Dies After Lad in Egypt.” The Sun
19 August 2009. 19 August 2009.
.
“Dad „Killed Girl To End Rape Pain‟.” The Sun
1 March 2010. 1 March 2010.
.
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Parker, Andrew. “Money Can Buy Everything But Happiness”. The Sun
The Sun 3 April 2010. 3 April 2010.
.
Dunn, Tom Newton. “Tory Tax Help For 4m Married”. The Sun
The Sun 10 April 2010. 10 April 2010.
.
Millard, Neil. “Fall Girl Lives, Thank to Aston”. The Sun
The Sun 13 May 2010.13 May 2010.
Crick, Andy. “Comedy Cult Hero in Cancer Fight Chat”. The Sun
The Sun 16 May 2010. 16 May 2010.
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