The Comparative Study Between Misunderstanding And Deliberate Misinterpretation In Verbal Communication

Misunderstanding (MIS) and deliberate misinterpretation (DMI) are two notions that are easy to be mixed up. Most researchers just touch upon the phenomenon of MIS or DMI respectively; few scholars have done deeper comparative analysis in these fields.Based on many different definitions provided by linguists and scholars from many perspectives, the new definitions of MIS and DMI have been offered. As a form of understanding, misunderstanding occurs involuntarily at the semantic-pragmatic layers of communication. It is partially or totally divergent from what the speakers intended to communicate and it is exclusively related to the hearers. As for DMI which is the aspect of misunderstanding, characterized by the intentional discrepancy or mismatch between the hearers'interpretation and the speakers'original meaning in order to fulfill the hearers'own communicative goals.On the basis of Relevance Theory (RT) developed by Sperber and Wilson (2001), this study is proposed to supply a model to analyze the similarities and the differences between MIS and DMI in terms of their definitions, communicative effects, triggers and generative mechanism. It reveals the general traits of MIS and DMI, which may share some similarities with other language phenomena, such as miscommunication, non-understanding, misleading and digression.Practically, the study of MIS and DMI may instruct and enlighten our daily communication. People are socialized through language and are socialized to use language in actually appropriate ways. Having a clear picture of MIS and DMI not only can improve the communicative competence of language users, but also can guarantee the communication to proceed smoothly and successfully. So the knowledge of MIS and DMI may promote people's own use of them, enhance the use of language more effectively and accelerate the process of socialization.