Recognition of linguistic ambiguity: an examination of first-year and fourth-year students from Licenciatura en Lengua y Literatura Inglesas from Universidad de Chile

Abstract

The phenomenon of linguistic ambiguity is complex, wide and unfortunately scarcely studied and explored. Nevertheless, the study of linguistic ambiguity, and particularly, the study of the linguistic ambiguity recognition or resolution may contribute to the study of language proficiency as it may be regarded as an indicator of language competence. The aim of the present research is to explore and establish the existence of possible connections between those two elements, language proficiency and linguistic ambiguity recognition, taking into account the impact of frequency effects on them. For this purpose the ability of recognising linguistic ambiguity in different statements was tested in three groups of English speakers: one control group of native speakers of English from the United States, and two groups of non-native speakers of English (first-year and fourth-year students) from the programme of Licenciatura en Lengua y Literatura Inglesas from Universidad de Chile. The obtained results presented evidence that led to conclude that the recognition of linguistic ambiguity in its three dimensions, namely phonological, lexical and syntactic, increases according to the level of language competence of the speakers, and therefore it may be considered as a valid indicator of language proficiency.