The article is devoted, first of all, to determining the place of ambiguity as an ambivalent phenomenon, that is, assessed both positively and negatively, in the field of research tasks of ecolinguistics. The author considers such a basis for the classification of ambiguous expressions as their status, which means the attribution of a particular expression to stylistic devices or errors.
Keywords: homonymy, stylistic devices, linguistic ambiguity, polysemy, Eco linguistics, pragmatics.
We are used to thinking of language as a precise vehicle through which we can clearly express our thoughts. But even in those cases when we try to clearly express our thought, there is a misunderstanding and substitution of meanings. People can express themselves ambiguously, intentionally and unintentionally. However, when a person uses a sentence or expression that can be interpreted in different ways, he usually puts only one meaning in it. As we already know, most words have denotation, explicit meanings, connotations, and implied or hidden meanings. We also often use words figuratively. Despite the fact that figurative language is most often used in poetry and fiction, it can also be observed in everyday speech.
Ambiguity is a guide to the world of poetry. It is human nature to seek meaning within the framework of the so-called exchange. We are given the text, and in exchange we give our interpretation of the content. Our own associations help us understand the meaning of the information provided.
Scientists have different approaches to how to define the term ambiguity. An identical concept can be amphibole as a duality resulting from mixing concepts or using words in different senses. The ambiguity of a word in speech, according to F. A. Litvin, “is the result of the interaction of the structure of the content of a word with a real context, an environment that promotes or hinders (from the point of view of the addressee) the realization of different linguistic potencies of the word” [5] Therefore, the word is not ambiguous in itself, but becomes such when it is impossible to understand from the context in which of the meanings of the lexeme is currently used.
We can assume that a syntactic form as a model, a scheme, can be ambiguous, while it can become ambiguous, being filled with specific vocabulary, which, together with an ambiguous construction, gives rise to the possibility of double understanding in the process of speech. Typical in this sense is the statement of A. A. Zaliznyak: “Under the ambiguity of a linguistic expression or a speech work, one understands the presence of several different meanings at the same time” — where in one definition such concepts as polysemy (the meaning of a linguistic expression) and ambiguity (the meaning of a speech work) are obviously mixed [2] On the one hand, the use of such a concept as a term seems to be quite justified and reflects the essence of the phenomenon to a greater extent than others found in scientific literature, and in the absence of the term «ambiguity» we would have used in our work, but, on the other hand, it has its drawbacks.
That is why we consider the name «ambiguity» to be unsuccessful for naming the phenomenon under study. In addition, the concept of ambiguity is itself «ambiguous», since it can be used in two meanings: as a linguistic phenomenon, and not as a speech phenomenon associated with a category of meaning, i.e. as a possible source of ambiguity, in another case it is correlated with the category of significance and placed in the semantic semantic field closer to the concept of ambivalence, i.e. the presence of variations in attitude. For example, in the work «Speech Possibilities of Textual Homonymy» O. A. Lapteva uses the expression «ambiguity of meaning», which does not completely cover the semantic field of the concept we are investigating, while «ambiguity» not only fully reflects the subject of our research, but is also more concise [Lapteva, 2016].
In this study, «stylistic device» is understood as a generalizing concept for stylistic figures and tropes, abandoning the concept of intentionality, since motivated is broader than intentional, because it considers both the relevance and the situation and the recipient.
Due to the fact that speech is normative, exemplary most often is not noted by us, psychologically does not exist for us due to its neutrality, then any means of expression is automatically a deviation from the norm. Thus, having modified the definition of G. A. Kopnina and A. P. Skovorodnikov, we will take the following definition as a working one: a stylistic device is a pragmatically motivated, modeled, deviating from the norm use of any linguistic means to achieve certain communicative goals.
Despite the existence of classifications of stylistic devices, the methods of organizing rhetorical devices still belong to one of the little-studied areas of elocution. In the systematization of rhetorical techniques, the main task is to highlight the principles of their construction. I. V. Pekarskaya writes: «The search for common principles underlying the construction of certain figures remains relevant to this day». «It deprives the possibility of a systemic comprehension of the material of the elocutionary section of rhetoric and the lack of clarity in the use of certain terms». [Pekarskaya, 2000] Therefore, in the subsequent paragraphs of this chapter, stylistic devices representing ambiguity will be defined and characterized, which are based on a single principle of creating ambiguity.
The attitude to the word is currently not only a philological problem: in the era of informatization, when the word is perceived primarily as a functional given, an element of the semi-system, a creative attitude towards it means at least liberation from stereotypes and an appeal to the individual implications of the word contained in human perception the world and yourself. The development of creative verbal thinking is based on the education of the ability to see ambiguity — as a mistake and as a seed of a creative speech structure. This is already a methodological problem that arises when the phenomenon of ambiguity and the phenomenon of a language game are well known to the participants in the educational process.
In a lesson that develops the creative potentials of students, it is logical to turn, for example, to the phrases of N. Bogoslovsky, each of which is missing one word, the restoration of which requires a certain mastery of the art of “feeling” the potentials of a word.
A creative attitude to the word is one of the most important and very rare skills of a person who sees what is hidden from the rest, who can accurately and wittily answer or surprise the interlocutor with a bright thought or a unique line. Hence — the path to the formation of spelling models, stylistic codes, rhetorical algorithms. All this constitutes the “sense of the word”, which makes a person the creator of his own word, which accumulates knowledge and skills obtained in contact with the literary (publicistic) text.
In other words, the work on the development of creative skills involves the creation of new meanings, situations, contexts, perspectives in which things and values that have become familiar can be considered. And it begins with a simple formation of the ability to see the difference between ordinary ambiguity, that is, a speech error, and a «language game», the creative potentials of which significantly increase the capabilities of the «person speaking».
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