Abstract

GIL, José María. On unintentional communication. Prax. filos. [online]. 2018, n.47, pp.113-135. ISSN 0120-4688.  https://doi.org/10.25100/pfilosofica.v0i47.6601.

In philosophy of language, the study of communication and cognition has been a task developed by pragmatics. Within this field, one of the fundamental aims is to characterize the procedures involved in the transmission and the recognition of intentional meaning. Pragmatics can indeed account for communication in terms of such intentional meaning. However, there is also a very common phenomenon in everyday language use: Many times, and because of good reasons, the hearer interprets that the speaker’s utterance evokes certain meanings that do not have much to do with the speaker’s intention. This so common phenomenon can be called unintentional communication. Thus philosophical analysis allows us to explain that, for example, a Freudian slip is a communicative phenomenon in which the meanings that are recognized by the hearer on the basis of the utterance are very different (and even incompatible with) the intentional meaning of the speaker.

Keywords : communication; cognition; intentional meanings; unintentional meaning; relational networks.

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