Ambiguity in the Dialogue of Beauty and the Beast (2017): A Semantic Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates semantic ambiguity as manifested in the dialogue of the 2017 live-action Disney film Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon. Drawing on the primary screenplay text authored by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos, this research employs a descriptive-qualitative method within the framework of lexical semantics and pragmatics to identify, classify, and analyse instances of ambiguity in character exchanges. The analysis identifies three primary categories of ambiguity lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic across thirty-two purposively selected dialogue excerpts involving the central characters Belle, the Beast, Gaston, LeFou, and the enchanted household objects. Data reveal that lexical ambiguity, driven by polysemy and contextual indeterminacy, is the most prevalent type (53%), followed by pragmatic ambiguity (31%) and syntactic ambiguity (16%). The study further shows that ambiguity in the film functions as a multi-layered narrative device: it encodes emotional subtext, sustains romantic tension, heightens dramatic irony, and reflects character development. These findings support and extend recent scholarship on cinematic discourse, meaning negotiation, and the pragmatics of film language. The study contributes to the growing field of telecinematic linguistics by demonstrating how deliberate semantic indeterminacy enhances storytelling depth in mainstream animated and live-action cinema.