Analysis Of Misunderstanding From The Viewpoint Of Intertextuality

Misunderstanding is a common phenomenon in verbal communication. Austin, Tannen , Thomas and so on define it and analyze the reasons of its generation from perspectives of philosophy, ethnology, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and pragmatics. Chinese scholars study it under the theoretical framework of cognitive pragmatic, cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics and so on. This paper tries to explain misunderstanding in discourse from the viewpoint of intertextuality and offer some reference for the study of this aspect.Intertextuality was first presented by French post-structuralism critic Julia Kristeva in Semiotics (1969). This term emphasizes that any single text is not self-complete. It is in the course of reference with other texts that the meaning of the present text gets produced. Any text is a kind of intertext and other texts such as prior text and cultural text exist, to different extents, in one text in all kinds of recognizable forms. It is the influence of other texts on the addressee during the process of he or she interpreting the text(Text A) delivered by the addresser that causes misunderstanding. This paper defines misunderstanding from the perspective of intertextuality and points out that misunderstanding is generated when the addressee transforms Text A delivered by the addresser into Text B after intertextualizing Text A with other texts. Based on different intertextual relationships between Text A and Text B, this paper classifies misunderstanding into two groups: misunderstanding of textual symbiosis and misunderstanding of textual derivation. And analysis of the latter group is the focus of this paper.There are complex intertextual relationships between literature works and real life since the former one stems from the latter one. On the other hand, language is the working material of literary creation and literary creation is the practical application of language. Therefore, this paper chooses misunderstandings between Jia Bao-yu and Lin Dai-yu in A Dream of Red Mansions, misunderstandings between King Lear and his little daughter Cordelia in King Lear, misunderstandings between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, to conduct analysis from the viewpoint of intertextuality, then tests it in the analysis of cases happening in real life. Nowadays studies on intertextuality is not limited in the field of literature and languages in real life. This theory has already been applied to more and more academic disciplines, for instance , translation, language teaching, text analysis and so on. Aim of this paper applying the theory to analysis of misunderstanding in discourse is to try"concept guiding behavior"or"theory guiding practice". This paper concludes through study that the explanation of misunderstanding from the perspective of intertextuality can help communicators make clear its generation process and offer some reference for avoiding misunderstanding in communication.