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Communication Failure

Bosco, F.M., Tirassa, M. (2010)Communication failure.In: The pragmatics encyclopedia, ed. L. Cummings (pp. 63-65).London and New York: Routledge.

Francesca M. Bosco and Maurizio Tirassa

Universit di TorinoDipartimento di Psicologia & Centro di Scienza Cognitivavia Po, 1410123 Torino (Italy)email bosco@psych.unito.it, tirassa@psych.unito.it

Successful communicationis to be defined in terms of the partners recognition of aparticular set of mental states of the speaker, in whom there is the intention to achieve such an

effect on the partner (Grice 1989). Within this perspective, communication failure may be

defined as an unsuccessful attempt on the part of the speaker to modify the partners mentalstates in the desired way. Failure repair then is a new attempt to produce the intended

communicative effect. Traditionally, a major research perspective on the topic has

been conversation analysis (CA). However, communication failures have received little

attention in recent years.

Within a CA perspective, Schegloff et al. (1977) showed that a structural-based preference

for self- versus other-initiation of repair exists in turn-takingafter a breakdown (see also Zahn

1984). Friedland and Miller (1998) also found that in brain-injured patients over 80 per cent

of repairs were self-initiated. Fox and Jasperson (1995) classified different types of self-repair

based on the operation included: repeating or recycling, replacing or substituting, adding or

inserting, and abandoning or restarting. Self-repair is preferably initiated in the same turn

where the trouble has occurred or in the third turn to the trouble source turn, i.e. the turnsubsequent to the one which follows the trouble source (Schegloff et al. 1977; but see also

Schegloff 1992, 1997a). Self-repairmay be carried out in response to other-initiation of repair

(Schegloff 2004). When the repair is initiated by the partner, it is almost always initiated in

the turn that follows the trouble source (Schegloff 1997b).Robinson (2006) has argued

thatthe meaning of other-initiated forms of repair can affect the speakers response. Forexample, if the trouble-source speaker understands himself to be blameworthy for the

breakdown, he is more likely to correct, rather than merely repeat, the trouble source, and to

engage in other types of accounting behaviours, such as apologizing.CA aims at a descriptive analysis of communication failures, which it views as

breakdowns or trouble occurring during conversation. More recently, some authors have

proposed that a specific case of communication failure,misunderstanding, be viewed as an

integral part of the comprehension process rather than just a breakdown (Dascal 1985;

Weigand 1999). In line with such a perspective Bosco et al. (2006) have claimed that all

communication failures, not only misunderstanding, integrally belong to the

cooperativeprocess (Grice 1957) in which agents are involved during communication. Within

a cooperative model of communication, the replies received from a partner provide the

speaker with the grounds on which to realize that a communicative attempt has failed.

Recognizing that a failure has occurred provides in its turn a starting point for repair.

Focusing on the complexity of the cognitive processes involved in failure recognition and

repair and following the assumptions ofcognitive pragmatics theory (Airenti et al. 1993;Bara 2008), Bosco et al. (2006) have proposed a taxonomy of the types of failures that may

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occur in communicative interaction. These are failure of the literal meaning, failure of the

speakers meaning, and failure of the communicative effect (i.e. the partners refusal to

accept a partners communication act). A failure may also involve a combination of two or allof these types. In order to achieve his or her communicative goal, and depending on the kind

of failure that has occurred, a speaker may employ different repair strategies. A speaker may

simply repeat whathe or shesaid (in the case of failure of the expression act), reformulate

what he or she said (in the case of failure of the speakers meaning) or change the content ofwhat he or she said (in the case of failure of the communicative effect). This taxonomy

allowed Bosco et al. (2006) to generate empirical hypotheses about the relative difficulty of

recognizing and repairing different kinds of failure that were confirmed by empirical evidence

obtained from 3- to 8-year-old children. In particular, it was found that it was easier for

children to repair a failure of literal meaning than a failure of speakers meaning, whereasrepair of communicative effect was the most difficult.

From a cognitiveanddevelopmental pragmaticsperspective it is useful to keep in mind

childrens performance, since it can offer suggestions on the increasing difficulty in theproduction of a specific pragmatic task. Direct observations of children show that in the

prelinguistic phase their recovery strategy is essentially to persist in repeating the failed

communicative act (Alexander et al. 1997). Use of this strategy tends to decrease as the childgets older (Garvey 1984) and becomes capable of distinguishing different types of failure and

of adopting a fitting repair strategy (Marcos 1991). During the second year of life children

become able to perform two different kinds of verbal repair: repetition and modification. In

particular, they just repeat their request when the adult replies with a neutral query. They give

a more specific version of it in response to a specific query from the adult (Anselmi et al.

1986) and reformulate it when the adult replies with a simple declarative comment (Wilcox

and Webster 1980). Children also appear to adopt a repair strategy suitable to the type of

failure that has occurred. When their mother misunderstands a request (rather than refuses to

comply with it), children try to clarify it rather than simply repeat it (Marcos and Kornhaber-

le Chanu 1992). Thus, while repetition appears to be the easiest strategy for recovery, the use

of more sophisticated and appropriate strategies appears to be an early acquisition.

A very early version of communication failure, rooted more in the failed realization of theinfants expectation of a certain action on the part of the mother than in the actual failure of acommunicative attempt on the part of the infant, has been claimed to play a role in the

development oftheory of mind (ToM) and Gricean communication (Tirassa et al. 2006). In

general, the possible relation between ToM and the ability to recognize and repair

communication failures appears to be a particularly interesting topic. It has been suggested

that when an agent be it a young child (Golinkoff 1986, 1993) or an adult (Feldman andKalmar 1996)repairs a communication failure, he or she usually adapts his or her strategyto take the partners perspective into account. In line with this hypothesis, children withautism, a condition which has been claimed to be associated with an impaired ToM (Baron-

Cohen et al. 1985), appear to experience communication failures more frequently than their

typically developing peers (see Keen 2003). However, Voldens (2004) study of the problem

yielded ambiguous results. On the one hand, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)performed similarly to controls in responding to requests for clarification. They used more

flexible and increasingly complex repair strategies according to whether they had received a

neutral request, a request for clarification, or a semistructured prompt (Tell me in anotherway) from an interlocutor. On the other hand, ASD children also produced a greater numberof inappropriate replies than the controls.

The symptomatology of schizophrenia, another psychiatric disorder, has been explained on

the basis of a ToM impairment (Frith 1992). Children suffering from schizophrenia have been

described as using self-initiated repair strategies like repetition, revision and fillers less

frequently than normally developed children (Caplan et al. 1996). Adults suffering from the

same disorder have been described as attempting to self-repair their messages inadequately

during a referential communication task (Leudar et al. 1992). Docherty (2005) used the

Communicative Disturbances Index (Docherty et al. 1996) to measure different kinds of

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failures during a natural conversation in a group of adult schizophrenic patients. These

investigators found that these patients experienced more trouble than controls.

To conclude, notwithstanding the importance of understanding communication failure,

recent literature on the topic does not abound. Further studies are needed to understand more

deeply the nature and role of the various cognitive processes involved in the ability to

recognize and recover communication failures. The study of recoveries in relation to the type

of failure that occurs appears to be a promising perspective.

See also

Discourse; Discourse analysis; Gestural communication; Inference; Inferential

comprehension; Schizophrenic language.

Suggestions for further reading

Bazzanella, C. (ed.) (1996)Repetition in Dialogue, Tbingen: Niemeyer.

Bosco, F.M., Bucciarelli, M. and Bara, B.G. (2006) Recognition and recovery of communicative failures: adevelopmentalperspective,Journal of Pragmatics, 38: 1398-1429.

Schegloff, E.A. (1992) Repair after next turn: the last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in

conversation, American Journal of Sociology, 97: 1295-1345.

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