Sunday, June 24, 2012

Am I making myself clear?

The other day, I came across a poster online and it got me thinking about several things.


From a teacher and linguist point of view, I started thinking about ambiguous sentences.

So I had a look around for sites with ambiguous sentences and came across several.

On the Fun with Words site, there is an amusing collection of ambiguous headlines, for example:
2 SISTERS REUNITED AFTER 18 YEARS AT CHECKOUT COUNTER

INCLUDE YOUR CHILDREN WHEN BAKING COOKIES

HOSPITALS ARE SUED BY 7 FOOT DOCTORS

RED TAPE HOLDS UP NEW BRIDGE





And I came across this sentence on Paul Butler's blog:

The complex houses married and single students and their families.

Most learners of English might know the word 'complex' as an adjective, but not a noun.  This is what English Profile reports about this word:

complex

 Click to hear the British English pronunciation/ˈkÉ’m.pleks/Outline view
Word family:
Nouns: complexity
Adjectives: complex
 ADJECTIVE
B2 involving a lot of different but connected parts in a way that is difficult to understand
Cambridge Learner Corpus Learner example:
It took us two weeks to modify the results in a very complex operation.
First Certificate in English; B2; Spanish
 NOUN

BUILDINGS

C1 a group of buildings or rooms that are used for a particular purpose
Dictionary example:
a sports/housing complex
Cambridge Learner Corpus Learner example:
A visit to any local shopping complex suggest[speople between 14 to 35 years of age are the [mostfrequent shoppers.
International English Language Testing System; C1; Malay

MENTAL

C2 a mental problem which makes someone anxious or frightened about something
Dictionary example:
an inferiority complex
Cambridge Learner Corpus Learner example:
He began to feel like that character in "Psycho", afraid that the hotel manager would turn out to be some kind of maniac with an Oedipus complex.
Certificate of Proficiency in English; C2; Catalan


And of course, the word 'house' is known to learners very early on, whereas the verb 'house' meaning 'to give a person or an animal a place to live' is not reported as being used by students in the Cambridge ESOL exams till C2 level.


While looking around, I learnt that such ambiguous sentences are known as garden path sentences.  Didn't know that till now!

It's like those pictures you were shown at school and asked what you saw in them, like this one:

Well, I hope my post today was clear and unambiguous!!!!


0 comments:

Post a Comment