A brief discussion on the issue of ambiguity in official documents

A brief discussion of the ambiguity problem in official documents

A brief discussion of the ambiguity problem in official documents

Ambiguity means that the statement is ambiguous or ambiguous Polyambiguous meaning is a linguistic phenomenon that can form two or more possible interpretations at the same time. For example, the sentence "We want to study documents" has three understandings: first, we intend to study documents; first, we ask for documents for study; first, we should study documents.

For natural language, ambiguity is a normal phenomenon. It is difficult to simply say whether it is good or bad, and it cannot be regarded as a language disorder and completely banned. In some literary styles, ambiguity is even used consciously by the author. For example, in cross talk works, ambiguity is often used to create baggage. Some rhetorical figures that are frequently used in daily oral communication and written communication, such as "pun", can also be regarded as actively applying "ambiguity" in a certain sense. But we have to point out that in more cases, ambiguity is indeed harmful. This is particularly harmful in application styles that are mainly used for transaction processing, especially official documents.

The language of official documents is a language that pays great attention to accuracy, because the purpose of using official documents is to make the other party accept the influence of the author, and it is a mandatory influence on the other party's behavior. For this influence to be effective, an important prerequisite is to make the expression of meaning highly precise. Each word, especially each sentence, must maintain the uniqueness of meaning to avoid the other party's "different opinions" and follow their respective understandings rather than the author's. act with intention. In this sense, ambiguity is certainly 100% harmful to official documents. There are numerous practical examples that can prove this point. It is said that before the end of World War II, the reason why Japan, which had long been defeated, suffered two atomic bombs was due to many reasons. One of the direct reasons was related to the statement issued by the Japanese government in response to the "Potsdam Declaration" Ambiguity is somewhat relevant. The Japanese government claims that its attitude towards the "announcement" is "silent killing". The word "silent killing" has multiple meanings in Japanese. It can be understood as "ignore" or "no comment for the time being." The statement did not limit this. In this way, the United States can naturally adopt the first understanding, and of course it can use "any means of war", including the use of atomic bombs, to end the war. In daily social life, ambiguities in official documents also continue to cause trouble for people. For example, in insurance contracts, the insurance coverage is written as: "Including household appliances, beds, bedding and other daily necessities"; in policy specifications, the insurance coverage is written as follows: Punishment regulations are written with ambiguous statements such as "We must severely crack down on a small number of criminals", which often makes the author of the official document "wait" into a passive situation, or even "wait" until his own interests suffer in vain; it often makes the author of the official document "wait" The true intention is puzzling, and even makes the author embarrassed to be recognized as "Only attacking the few, but targeting the majority...".

Ambiguity is harmful to official documents. It is not needed by the writer but is often caused unintentionally. So, how can we avoid ambiguity in official documents? The author believes that the method of overcoming ambiguity is not complicated. It is very effective to adjust the sentence components in a targeted manner and create the necessary language environment. What is difficult and plays a key role is to be able to discover the existence of ambiguity. To do this, we must understand how ambiguity occurs and remain alert to it.

Under normal circumstances, when there are improper word selection, improper word order, misuse of omissions, incorrect use of quantifiers in official documents, there are components with unclear parts of speech in the sentence, the grammatical relationship between the sentence components is unclear, and the semantics attached to the intonation cannot be Ambiguities will be formed when the words are read accurately, when effective qualifying modifications of words and phrases with uncertain meanings are ignored, punctuation is incorrectly used, figures of speech are abused, etc.

(1) Improper word selection leads to misunderstanding of concepts and leads to ambiguity.

Improper word selection related to ambiguity is mainly manifested in the misuse of dialect words, colloquial words and folk slang, the use of irregular abbreviations, the misuse of praise and blame words, etc.

An important stylistic feature of my country’s contemporary official documents is that the written form of modern Chinese (i.e., vernacular) is used as the standard symbol system. Except for very special circumstances, it is forbidden to use words that are not included in the Mandarin standard. Dialect words, colloquial words and colloquial slang. If we do not understand or respect this rule when writing official documents and misuse these words, this will often lead to ambiguity in the official document.

Because these words not only have a narrow scope of application and their meanings are not understood by most people, but also often have synonyms with the standard word forms in Mandarin. For example, "mosquito" in Changsha dialect also refers to "fly"; "foot" in Wu, Cantonese and Hakka dialects is equivalent to "leg" in Mandarin; in spoken words, "biting ears" has written meanings in Mandarin besides In addition to literally biting the ear, the word can also mean whispering. If we use such words arbitrarily in official documents, of course it will inevitably lead to "benevolent people have different opinions, and wise people have different opinions." The author's original intention will be misunderstood or even misinterpreted by some people.

The ambiguity brought by non-standard abbreviations to official documents mainly stems from the high uncertainty of these abbreviations themselves without context and precise background information. "National People's Congress" can be understood as "People's University of China" or "People's Congress" without a precise explanation of the context; "Nantang University" needs to be clearly defined with a more precise explanation of the context. "Nanjing University" or "Nankai University". The ambiguity caused by non-standard abbreviations in official documents is often more than just a joke. If the "Ministry of National Personnel" is used to refer to the "Ministry of Personnel of the People's Republic of China", in a legal sense, the author of the official document does not The relevant expression of intention will be invalid, because there is no such "department" legally, and no one can or needs to use such a name to assume responsibilities, perform obligations, and exercise rights.

Wrong use of positive or derogatory words in official documents can also cause ambiguity. The purpose of using words with a positive or negative tone in official documents is to express the author's position more clearly and concisely. If misused, it will make it difficult for readers to accurately understand the author's true position. For example, in the sentence "Xiao Wang innovated the working methods, many people learned about it and imitated him one after another", "innovation" and "imitation" are both praise and criticism. The reader's understanding of the author's attitude can be regarded as both affirmation and appreciation. Doing is negative. The author's true attitude is likely to be affirmative, or negative, or even a neutral attitude that is not currently necessary or possible. Of course, this ambiguity often leads to corresponding wrong behaviors.

(2) Improper word order makes the object of the limited description unclear and causes ambiguity.

Word order refers to the order in which language units at all levels are arranged in a combination. Improper word order, especially improper word order in sentences with multiple attributives, often leads to ambiguity. Please see the following examples:

Also sitting on the rostrum were representatives of several technical innovation groups.

Here, the inappropriate position of the attributive "several" causes ambiguity. It can be understood that the people seated are representatives of several groups, or that the people seated are several representatives of one group.

(3) If the part-of-speech of individual words in the sentence is unclear, ambiguity will also occur.

Please see the following example sentences:

The author analyzes the characteristics of the competitive strategies adopted by enterprise group a and group b when they compete in various periods.

Here, since it is difficult to distinguish whether the part of speech of the word "和" is a conjunction or a preposition, the sentence has a completely different meaning at the same time: if used as a conjunction, the meaning of the sentence is that the author analyzed a , b The competitive strategy characteristics of the two enterprise groups; if used as a preposition, the sentence meaning is that the author analyzed the competitive strategy characteristics of the a enterprise group.

(4) Ignoring the qualifying modifications of words or phrases with uncertain meanings, causing ambiguity.

There are always some words or phrases in natural language whose meanings are non-deterministic, but if they cannot be limited or explained in an effective way in official documents, ambiguity will easily arise. For example, in official documents, words such as "above", "below" and "within" are often used to define the different nature, degree and scope of things. In fact, the meaning of such words is very uncertain. If they are not handled carefully, ambiguities will arise, and they are often ambiguities related to the boundaries between right and wrong and policy boundaries. These ambiguities mainly arise from people's different understandings of whether "above", "below" and "within" include the original number. Please see the following example sentences:

Employees who have been working for more than xx years can enjoy up to 10 days of paid travel leave a year.

There are at least two inaccuracies about this provision, which may cause disputes during the implementation process: Does the year xx and above include the year xx? Does less than 10 days include 10 days?

After understanding the above phenomenon, we can understand why the "Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China" has Article 99: "The terms above, below, and within in this law include the original number. ”

(5) Abuse of omission, resulting in incomplete sentence elements and causing ambiguity.

In the process of using language, proper application of omission can indeed make the sentence concise and clear. However, if it exceeds the necessary limit, the abuse of omission will go to the opposite direction, become a language disorder and may cause ambiguity. The main inappropriate omissions related to ambiguity are:

1. Omitting necessary function words. See example sentences:

After research, the county government agreed with the report of township a government.

Here, after the particle "的" before "report" is omitted, the sentence has at least two meanings: one is to agree with the report of Township A; the other is to agree with Township A's report.

2. Omit necessary related words. See example sentences:

If the entrusted unit misses the deadline, the entrusting unit will be fined.

Here, because the related words indicating the internal relationship of the complex sentence are omitted, the meaning of the sentence can be understood as being fined because of delay; it can also be understood as being fined if delayed. This difference will have a completely different impact on the file execution results.

3. Omit necessary subjects and objects. See example sentences:

The bureau allocated a small computer to the Municipal Textile Industry Corporation, and then allocated it to the Worsted Textile Branch.

Here, due to the incomplete subject or object, the sentence has at least three meanings: the bureau allocated one to the head office, and the head office in turn allocated it to the branch; the bureau allocated one to the head office, Each branch office has one; the bureau allocated one to the head office, and then transferred it back to the branch office.

4. Blindly apply omitted sentence patterns in spoken language. People often use some omitted sentence patterns with simple structures in spoken language. Under the special contextual conditions of face-to-face communication, this omission does not affect the accuracy of the meaning. However, if they are blindly applied to official documents of written communication, it will inevitably Ambiguity arises. For example, in spoken language, "I have to go there" can be omitted as "I have to go there", but if "I have to resolutely follow the instructions of the municipal government" is omitted in an official document, it means "I have to resolutely follow the instructions of the city government". "Do" will cause confusion.

(6) Polysemy words and polysemy phrases cause unclear grammatical relationships between relevant components in sentences, causing ambiguity.

According to the decoration standards of presidential suites in )-class hotels, this plan will be revised before requesting instructions.

This is the most extreme example of the misuse of figures of speech in official documents causing ambiguity. The document does not directly criticize the issue of a county-level guesthouse preparing to exceed standard decoration. Instead, it uses an "irony" figure of speech to indirectly express the author's meaning through insinuations, satire, etc. Such an expression not only destroys the solemn and solemn tone required by the official document, but also gives the reader too much room for association, so that they either really don't understand the reason, or they can deliberately misinterpret it. The standard style of official documents does not allow indirect expression of meaning. Therefore, if the other party regards the above example as a "standard" official document with direct expression of intention and understands its meaning from the front, of course it cannot be seen, or at least it can be said that it cannot be understood in the text. Any criticism. It can be seen that this ambiguity is very harmful, and it often becomes a protective umbrella for "misinterpretation".