Written by: Andika Pratama

Language is the primary tool we use every day to communicate our thoughts and feelings to others in social life. We tend to assume that whatever we say will be understood by our interlocutors exactly as we intended, especially when we use words that are common and widely recognized. However, communication does not always run smoothly. This is because language is flexible and can sometimes be confusing when its context is not properly understood.

This phenomenon is known in linguistics as semantic ambiguity, a condition in which a word or sentence has more than one possible meaning, resulting in different interpretations. If we are not careful in identifying the intended meaning, misunderstandings can easily occur, causing the message being conveyed to become unclear or even deviate from its original purpose.

One of the types of ambiguity that most frequently causes confusion is homonymy, which occurs when a word has the same form but carries meanings that are completely unrelated. An example in Indonesian is the word “bisa,” which has two very different meanings: snake venom and the ability to do something. Our brains must make a rapid selection because these two meanings compete for attention in working memory. This competition between unrelated meanings can slow down word recognition because we have to suppress the incorrect meaning in order to achieve a complete understanding.

There is also a form of ambiguity arising from the written or spoken form of words. These include homographs, which are distinguished based on their written form, and homophones, which are distinguished based on pronunciation. An example of a homograph is the Indonesian word “apel,” which has an identical spelling but can have different pronunciations and meanings depending on whether it refers to the fruit or a formal flag ceremony held in an open field.

By contrast, homophones occur in words such as “sanksi” and “sangsi,” or “bank” and “bang,” which may sound identical or very similar in speech but have completely different spellings and meanings. Listeners therefore rely heavily on the overall context of a sentence to determine whether someone is referring to a financial institution or addressing an older brother in an informal situation.

Beyond word forms, ambiguity can also arise from hierarchical relationships between general and specific words. In linguistics, this phenomenon is associated with hyponymy. A word such as “bunga” can function as a general term, or hypernym, encompassing specific types of flowers such as roses and jasmine. However, bunga can also refer metaphorically to concepts such as bunga desa or bunga bank. Ambiguity of reference often occurs when a speaker uses a term that is too general in a situation that actually requires more specific details. Listeners may imagine an object different from what the speaker intended because the semantic range of the word is too broad and insufficiently specific.

Another type of lexical meaning relation involving multiple related meanings is known as polysemy. This type of ambiguity can be even more complex. For example, the Indonesian word “mata” can refer to mata pisau (“the edge or point of a blade”) or mata air (“a spring”). Although these meanings are different, they are conceptually related through a central notion of an important component within an object or structure.

The human brain responds to polysemy differently and more adaptively than it responds to confusing homonymy. The presence of multiple related meanings in a polysemous word can actually facilitate word recognition because these meanings form a rich and interconnected semantic network in our memory. This processing advantage associated with polysemy occurs because related meanings overlap within the brain’s semantic space, creating a relatively stable area of activation.

Ambiguity does not stop at the lexical level; it also extends to the syntactic or sentence level. A sentence such as “Dukun beranak di ruang tamu” (“The midwife is giving birth in the living room”) contains structural ambiguity in Indonesian. It can be interpreted in two ways: the dukun beranak may be assisting a patient during childbirth, or the person referred to as the dukun beranak may be giving birth herself. A loose grammatical structure without clear markers indicating syntactic functions can therefore produce two very different interpretations from exactly the same sequence of words. This condition is particularly common in written language because written text lacks vocal intonation and pauses that might otherwise help clarify meaning.

Another example is the sentence, “Istri kapten yang tidak setia itu ditembak mati” (“The unfaithful captain’s wife was shot dead”). This sentence can also produce more than one interpretation. The first interpretation is that the captain is the unfaithful person and that the captain died. The second interpretation is that the captain’s wife was unfaithful and was executed. To distinguish between these interpretations more systematically, a syntactic analysis is necessary.

Ultimately, this phenomenon, which is actually quite common in everyday communication, teaches us not to rush to judge someone’s intended meaning based solely on an isolated word or sentence without considering its broader context. The diversity of meaning enriches human expressive ability because it allows us to convey complex nuances of thought and emotion efficiently, even though it also carries the potential for misunderstanding.

References

Lumbantobing, S. T. W., & Damanik, B. A. R. (2025). Semantic ambiguity affects interpretation in everyday conversations. Young Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 1(2), 151–158.

Rodd, J. M., Gaskell, M. G., & Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (2002). Making sense of semantic ambiguity: Semantic competition in lexical access. Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 245–266.

Rodd, J. M., Gaskell, M. G., & Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (2004). Modelling the effects of semantic ambiguity in word recognition. Cognitive Science, 28(1), 89–104.

Suwama. (1993). Struktur logika kalimat ambiguitas: Tinjauan semantik generatif. Cakrawala Pendidikan, 12(2), 75–87.

Syavika, N., Rahayu, W., & Fatmawati. (2026). Representasi mental ambiguitas semantik pada teks naratif dan implikasinya terhadap pemahaman bacaan di kalangan remaja. Socius: Jurnal Penelitian Ilmu-Ilmu Sosial, 3(6), 271–277.

Photo source: Freepik