INCORRECT PUNCTUATION, AS A CAUSE OF AMBIGUITY ANDMISUNDERSTANDING IN WRITTEN COMMUNCATION

INCORRECT PUNCTUATION, AS A CAUSE OF AMBIGUITY ANDMISUNDERSTANDING IN WRITTEN COMMUNCATION

INTRODUCTION

Punctuation is one of the major aspects that contribute to meaning of any written discourse. This implies that correct the use of punctuation in written communication enhances meaning and fluency which facilitates comprehension and effective communication

However, when punctuation marks are used incorrectly, it generally alters meaning and creates ambiguity in written discourse which leads to ineffective communication.

This research is taken to investigate how incorrect punctuation creates ambiguity and misunderstanding in written communication. This will be achieved by examining selected scripts of UG III students of Modern European Languages and Linguistics of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto, thereby evaluating the causes of ambiguity in the essays with regards to the incorrect use of punctuation.

 

 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Punctuation is the use of punctuation marks within a written text to enhance its meaning or fluency or to indicate aspect of pronunciation. Punctuation is one of the most important aspects of written communications. In fact, it is the basic features of any written discourse that gives meaning to the written words. Hence, an error in punctuation can convey a completely different meaning as against the intended one, thereby, making communication incomprehensible and ambiguous. Therefore, it is important in any written discourse for one to know the functions of punctuation marks, their meaning and when to use them in order to provide a good piece of comprehensible written discourse, and more importantly to convey the correct message.

Over the years, writing system was mostly logographic and syllabic (such as Chinese and Maya scripts) which had no capitalization or punctuation. Nevertheless,some its purposes as long as the writing was restricted or limited to business transactions e.g. writings used for recording business transactions.

 

However, with the introduction of standard system of punctuation, written discourse came to be seen from a new dimension where rules of punctuation are strictly considered as the basic part of meaning of any written discourse.

The introduction of standard system of punctuation is generally attributed to Aldus Manutius and his grandson who popularized the practice of ending sentences with full stop, colon and occasional use of comma and parenthesis. However, the use of punctuation marks was not standardized until after the invention of printing which indicated the rules of punctuation in writing. Shortly after the invention of printing, punctuation thus, served as a guide in ascribing meaning in written discourse which aids and facilitates comprehension.

Following this invention, punctuation marks over the years have been developed (such as full stop, comma, colon, semi-colon, hyphen, Apostrophe, question marks, exclamation mark, bracket among others) to provide proper expression of meaning in writing and to convey a well comprehensible written discourse. However, up to date, these punctuation marks came to be seen as an aspect that contributed to the meaning of written communication. Hence, incorrect punctuation may distort or affect meaning in written discourse which creates ambiguity that hinders effective communication in written discourse. Thus, this reveals that punctuation is a basic part of meaning in written communication and its incorrect use will no doubt create ambiguity.

Therefore, from this theoretical framework, this study examines selected scripts of UG III Students of Modern European Languages and Linguistics of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto in order to explicate how incorrect punctuation creates ambiguity and misunderstanding in written discourse which hinder effective communication.

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