Structural ambiguity in selected Arabic literary texts

Abstract EN

In general, ambiguity is a problematic area in studying literary texts, namely, structural ambiguity.

The present paper is designed to investigate structural ambiguity in Selected Arabic Literary Texts and the data are taken from two selected Arabic novels; Frankeshtine in Baghdad and Only the Pomegranate Tree.

Quirk et al.

(1985) is adopted as a model of analysis.

The study aims at diagnosing the types of structural ambiguity in those Arabic literary novels to lead to a better understanding of literary texts.

The study mainly hypothesizes that Arabic readers face different cases of structural ambiguity in Arabic literary texts and structural ambiguity of some expressions in Arabic literary texts may occur spontaneously because the writers are not fully aware of that ambiguity as they believe that their expressions are clear.

The paper provides a theoretical background of the previous studies and a practical part which tackles the data analysis in which samples of structural ambiguity are presented.

Finally, it was concluded that structural ambiguity is a common phenomenon in language which can be removed by means of good style and context, ambiguous structures and expressions are heavily loaded in these novels, and structural ambiguity can be excluded by using punctuation marks, paraphrasing, or adding extra details.