The Perception of Ambiguous Sentences by English L2 Speakers

Abstract

This paper explores and compares the perception of lexical and structural ambiguity by English L2 speakers. The study on which it is based used data collected from the National University of Lesotho students in the second, third and fourth years of study. The students were selected from the departments of Law, Nursing, Pastoral Care and Counselling, English and Political Science. A structure is considered perceived if it occurs accurately 90 percent of the time. The study finds that students fail to perceive ambiguous sentences and that their perception of structural ambiguity is better perceived than that of lexical ambiguity.