Dogmas of understanding

Investigators of language understanding have made a number of idealizations in order to study it, but many of these idealizations have turned into dogmas-convictions that are impervious to evidence. Because of these dogmas, investigators have often ignored, dismissed, or ruled out of court common fe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Discourse processes 1997-01, Vol.23 (3), p.567-598
Main Author: Clark, Herbert H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Language Processing
Language Research
Research Problems
Social Influences
Sociolinguistics
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Summary:Investigators of language understanding have made a number of idealizations in order to study it, but many of these idealizations have turned into dogmas-convictions that are impervious to evidence. Because of these dogmas, investigators have often ignored, dismissed, or ruled out of court common features of everyday language such as indirect meaning, word innovation, phrasal utterances, interjections, listener roles, listener background, specialized lexicons, joint actions by speakers and addressees, disfluencies, changes of mind, gestures, eye gaze, pretense, and quotations. I describe eleven common dogmas of understanding, some evidence against them, and some of the dangers they pose for the study of understanding. Using language is fundamentally social, I argue, and social features appear to influence understanding at many, perhaps most, levels of processing.
ISSN:0163-853X
1532-6950
DOI:10.1080/01638539709545003