Dear Sabine,
> From: SABINE BRAUN <euv-6874@student.euv-frankfurt-o.de>
> Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 14:48:40 +0200 (MEST)
> Subject: RT and misunderstanding
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> my name is Sabine Braun and I am a student of linguistics at European
> University Frankfurt (Oder) / Germany. In my final thesis I am working
> on
> comprehension processes in verbal communication (comprising cases of
> understanding, misunderstanding and non-understanding in dyadic verbal
> interaction).
>
> The RT-approach is supposed to be at the heart of my considerations.
> Concerning this I have a question to ask you as RT-specialists and
> -enthusiasts.
>
> The phenomenon of verbal misunderstanding is not really considered
> within
> RT. I could find only one single remark in Sperber & Wilson's
> Relevance.
> Communication and Cognition (1995) concerning the failure of
> communication, i.e. the occurring of misunderstandings (p. 16):
>
> "A speaker who intends an utterance to be interpreted in a particular
> way
> must also expect the hearer to be able to supply a context which allows
> that interpretation to be recovered. A mismatch between the context
> envisaged by the speaker and the one actually used by the hearer may
> result in a misunderstanding"
Is this really the only statement? I don't have the time right now to check,
but I seem to remember a statement to the effect that ostensive-inferential
communication may fail even in optimal situations, in contrast to coded
communication where comprehension is guaranteed when everything works
optimally. The reason for this is that the communicative principle of
relevance licenses acceptance of the first interpretation that satisfies
expectations of relevance as the one intended by the communicator, but it
doesn't _guarantee_ comprehension. This means that there are interesting
cases of misunderstanding (about which one can tell an explanatory story)
and uninteresting ones (about which there is nothing more to be said).
Also, Sperber and Wilson do discuss cases of possible misunderstanding
arising from 'accidental relevance' and 'accidental irrelevance'. I think
it's also in _Relevance_ (again, I can't check right now), but it is at
least in the following papers:
Wilson, D. 1998: 'Discourse, coherence and relevance: a reply to Rachel
Giora,' Journal of Pragmatics. 29, 57-74.
Wilson, D. & D. Sperber 2000: 'Truthfulness and relevance' [Check either the
UCL Wrking Papers on Linguistics home page or www.dan.sperber.com for the
exact reference and a downloadable version of this paper.]
>
>
> This short comment just mentions one possible reason for the occurring
> of
> misunderstandings but does not go any deeper.
Ernst-August Gutt says a lot more about misunderstandings in his book
_Translation and relevance_ (2nd edition: Manchester, St. Jerome, 2000; 1st
edition: Oxford, Blackwell 1991).
>
> Why is unsuccessful communication neglected within RT? Is not it as
> much
> worth explaining as successful communication? Isn't an approach which
> claims to provide a theory for successful comprehension processes also
> supposed to deal with the opposite phenomenon? That is to say that the
> possibility of failure of verbal interaction should be automatically
> incorporated within a theory of successful communication (= RT). It
> seems
> to me that these are two sides of the same coin.
You are right about the need to study misunderstanding in a theory of
ostensive communication. From this perspective, your thesis promises to be
very relevant to RT. But I do have a few comments on the questions you ask:
1. In an inferential theory of communication it is indeed much more
necessary to explain why it works. Because there is virtually no limit on
what one could infer from a given piece of evidence, it is no wonder that
communication based on inference may go wrong. The burning question is: why
does it work at all? And: why does ostensive-inferential communication work
so well for us? So there is indeed an asymmetry in the explanatory burden of
an inferential theory of communication. This means that while the study of
unseccessful communication is indeed important, it is probably not the other
side of the same coin with explaining successful communication.
2. RT does indeed suggest several reasons for misunderstandings: one is that
the audience processes the ostensive stimulus in a context different from
the one intended, for whatever reason. Second, the stimulus may be relevant
for the audience in different ways than envisaged by the communicator, for
whatever reasons. Furthermore, the theory does away with a binary
distinction between understanding and misunderstanding: the goal of
communication is not identity of thoughts, but overlap to relevant degrees
(especially in relation to the strong-weak communication cline).
>
> I'd really appreciate your comments on this.
>
> Maybe in your opinion this is not a question worth raising. If that is
> the
> case I am even more interested in your comments.
>
> Thanks very much in advance.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Sabine Braun.
>
>
>
> Sabine Braun
> Richard-Sorge-Str. 63
> 10249 Berlin
> ratzfatz@gmx.li
>
>
>
Best,
Christoph Unger
-------------------------------------
Christoph Unger (SIL International)
In den Gaerten 62
D-35398 Giessen
Germany
Phone: (49) 6403 73782
Office: (49) 6403 776630
Fax: (49) 6403 7759420
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