Literary Arts (Oct 2011)
The importance and types of ambiguity in the researches
Abstract
Abstract In the Old Persian literature, ambiguity is of little importance. Only when talking of the figure of paradox, always along with two other synonymous terms i.e. Towjih and zoowajhein, at times ـ and not very often ـ they refer to ambiguity which is a fourth term for the very unusual figure of speech in Persian and Arabic literature. This is while in the old literary texts up to now ambiguity is considered one of the most frequent figures of speech, which goes hand in hand by simile and metaphor. Firstly, This paper intends to give an exact definition of ambiguity, and then to provide a literature review on the previous research papers relevant to the subject and, finally along with clarifying different types of ambiguity determine the importance of the impact of four fundamental elements of text, reader, environment, and author ـ four basic pillars of the structure of a text ـ on ambiguity.
