Page 113 - English for Writing Research Papers

Chapter 6

Avoiding Ambiguity, Repetition, and Vague

Language

Factoids

In 1905 a treaty between Russia and Japan nearly fell apart due to ambiguity
in language. The draft of the treaty was written in English and French, and
control and contrôler were both attributed the same meaning, whereas the
English word meant ‘dominate’ and the French word ‘inspect’.

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A United Nations Security Council resolution in November 1967 called for
the withdrawal of Israel from territories occupied in the Six Day War. The
English version was: Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories
occupied in the recent confl ict . The French version (another offi cial language
of the UN) contained the definite article before territories , thus implying all

the territories, whereas the English version could be interpreted as some ter-
ritories but not necessarily all.

*****

Legal battles have been fought over the usage of and . Suppose a research
institute promises to ‘pay you €10,000 and give you a full contract if you fi n-
ish the research within 18 months’. What happens if you don’t fi nish within
18 months? Do you still get the €10,000? Well you would only get the money
if there was a comma before the and . The comma would indicate that the

€10,000 and the finishing of the research are two different issues.

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 95
A. Wallwork, English for Writing Research Papers,
English for Academic Research, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-26094-5_6