Chapter 3: Everything is ambiguous
This chapter in a nutshell
- Human communication is ambiguous
- Ambiguity is something to be embraced when it comes to digital literacies
- Use different types of ambiguity for different purposes
“The Hatter opened his eyes very wide... but all he said was, ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’ ‘Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice. ‘I'm glad they've begun asking riddles. — I believe I can guess that,’ she added aloud. ‘Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?’ said the March Hare. ‘Exactly so,’ said Alice. ‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on. ‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least — at least I mean what I say — that’s the same thing, you know.’ ‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘You might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see”!’ ” (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)
We’re surrounded by ambiguity in everyday life. Words not only have multiple meanings, but the context in which we use words can greatly change their meaning. Even words that both sound the same and are spelled the same way can be understood very differently depending upon context.
My favourite example of this is the word ‘buffalo’ as most people consider this to be unproblematic. However, when you point out that the sentence ‘Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo’ is actually grammatically-valid they look a bit bemused. This is because ‘Buffalo’ can pertain to bison-like mammals, the city of Buffalo in the USA, and the action of bullying or intimidating someone. Say the word ‘Buffalo’ in the UK and it’s almost certain that the person who hears the word will think of an animal. Say the word in New York and the person you’re speaking to might first think of the US city. 1
Given how context-dependent language can be, it’s a wonder we manage to successfully communicate our ideas at all! Like Alice in the quotation introducing this chapter, we assume that if we mean what we say then everything will be alright. So long as we use what we consider to be appropriate words then others will understand what we’re trying to convey. Indeed, even as I’m writing this I have to edit and re-write sentences so as to avoid being misunderstood. Like democracy, language isn’t perfect, but it’s the best system we’ve got at the moment!
In this chapter I want to argue that ambiguity is actually something to be embraced rather than to be avoided — and especially when it comes to digital literacies. I’m going to introduce a continuum of ambiguity I that I have come up with, something that I found necessary to make sense of the digital literacies landscape. While you can happily skip this chapter if you’re just interested in getting on with digital literacies in practice, I do think it’s of value to consider how we can use ambiguity in our favour.
1 More about this at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo