Ambiguity Makes Language More Efficient

While it's intuitive to argue that language appeared so that we can communicate more efficiently, linguists are not convinced that this was indeed the main reason. Debates on this issue have been raging on for years, and now experts in the United States bring an interesting point of view to the table.

Many experts have argued over the years that language is not necessarily well suited for communication between individuals. One of the main reasons brought in favor of this argument is the fact that ambiguity appears to be built into the language itself.

Taking this line of reasoning a step forward, scientists suggested that, were language to evolve exclusively in order to convey meaning, then each word would only designate a single concept, idea, feeling or thing. This is obviously not the case.

What these scholars were suggesting was in fact that language might have evolved for other reasons, for example in order to grant individuals the ability to better structure their thoughts. Now, linguists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in Cambridge, say that this is not so.

The fact that confusion and misunderstanding are still present in language, in other words, the fact that ambiguity endures, serves the specific, albeit counterintuitive, function of making speech more efficient, the team says.

Researchers explain that ambiguity allows people to use short and efficient sounds for conveying large volumes of data at once. Listeners decode these meanings based on context in which they heard the sounds, and this is where misunderstandings occur.

“Various people have said that ambiguity is a problem for communication. But once we understand that context disambiguates, then ambiguity is not a problem – it’s something you can take advantage of, because you can reuse easy [words] in different contexts over and over again,” says Steven Piantadosi.

The investigator, a postdoctoral researcher in the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, is the lead author of a new paper describing the findings. The work will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the esteemed journal Cognition.

In order to illustrate the dependency of word meanings on contexts, researchers give the example of the word “mean,” which can illustrate an indication, an intention or purpose, an offensive reply, or a mathematical average. Its plural can indicate financial resources or a method used to reach a goal.

Even though this word has so many meanings, it does not confuse people at all, since its true sense in any particular situation is derived from the context itself.

“This paper presents a really rigorous argument as to why that kind of ambiguity is actually functional for communicative purposes, rather than dysfunctional,” comments Stanford University professor of linguistics and philosophy Tom Wasow, who was not a part of the study.