Ambiguity and disambiguation in Chilli Beans advertising

an analysis of “grau”

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the possibility of ambiguity and disambiguization in the Chilli Beans optical advertisement based on the lexical item grau, which can have several meanings, generating several possible interpretations. To carry out this analysis, we used Mari (2024), who explores homonymy, polysemy and semantic reduction; Katz (1977) and Katz (1982), who deal with the concept of phonological, syntactic and semantic ambiguities and semantic anomaly; and Greimas (1973), who deals with the similarities and differences of object terms. Our general objective is to explore ambiguity and disambiguization in the Chilli Beans optical advertisement. Our general objective is to explore ambiguity and disambiguization in the Chilli Beans Optical advertisement. The specific objectives were to analyse the homonymic and polysemous relationships in some of the words in the advertisement that generate the possibility of ambiguity; to see how ambiguity can occur in the advertisement; and, finally, to demonstrate how disambiguization can be applied to show that, in fact, there is no ambiguity when the entire statement and context are taken into account. The main result was that, in some cases, the signifier grau doesn't actually produce ambiguity given the context in which the word is inserted, while in another case, ambiguity is evident because that word has more than one meaning, without there being a semantic anomaly, which allows for more than one acceptable interpretation and, therefore, ambiguity.