On Strategic Ambiguity

Cleaning Out My Journals:

Ryan K. Clark (2005) Assessing Bohr's rhetorical success in the EPR debate,Southern Communication Journal, 70:4, 301-315, DOI: 10.1080/10417940509373336

Strategic ambiguity is a form of polysemy that is distinct from mere ambiguity. Ceccarelli (1998) states that,"Polysemy indicates a bounded multiplicity, a circumscribed opening of the text inwhich we acknowledge diverse but finite meanings" (p. 398). Where a strictly ambiguous statement does not direct an auditor to any particular meaning, strategic ambiguity invites a range of readings.Although the question of intent with regard to strategy is a difficult one, it is often possible to remain agnostic about the question of intentionality in identifying the strategic features of a text. For example, a person might employ alliteration without consciously seeking to do so or even knowing what alliteration is, but alliteration would still be an identifiable feature of that person's discourse. Accordingly, this essay does not speculate about Bohr's intended strategies but focuses on the strategies that are evident in the text.