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In:Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics
Edited by István Kecskés and Stavros Assimakopoulos
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 274] 2017
► pp. 55–74

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Chapter 3
Why is miscommunication more common in everyday life than in lingua franca conversation?

 | University of Helsinki
Published online: 14 June 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.274.04mus
Abstract
This paper tries to find explanations for the controversial observation that there are more cases of miscommunication in everyday than in lingua franca conversation. Besides reasoning related to language, attention is paid to communicative, mental, and psychological factors. The argument pursued is that the differences in the communicants’ mental worlds in cross-cultural encounters are usually compensated by intensive concentration on communication and appropriate recipient design. In encounters with people we know well, on the other hand, there is a higher risk of common ground fallacy, which leads to underestimation of differences in mental worlds, especially those in recent experience. A further factor to consider here is the inherent limitations of human cognition which cause people to avoid cognitive efforts when appropriate.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The mental worlds of communicants
  • 3.Features of everyday and lingua franca conversation
    • 3.1Everyday conversation
    • 3.2Lingua franca conversation
      • 3.2.1Intensive concentration on communication but not on the tool of interaction
      • 3.2.2Linguistic simplification of speech
      • 3.2.3Reduction of the goals of communication
      • 3.2.4Proper use of recipient design
  • 4.Process of communication
    • 4.1The starting point: what the Speaker wants to say
    • 4.2Which Form will be chosen for the Meaning?
    • 4.3What happens when articulating the utterance?
    • 4.4Does the utterance reach the Recipient?
    • 4.5Failures in the interpretation of Meaning
    • 4.6Misreference
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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