Say not to say.New perspectives on miscommunication

This book tries to pro vide the reader with worthwhile options for a vast array of interpersonal situations - deception, irony, humor, seduction, computer mediated communication - and discusses the theory, research, and evidence bearing on the miscommunication process. The starting point of the book is the assumption that a viable theory of communication has also to explain miscommunication in its different forms. Following this perspective, in Section 1 - Towards a definition of miscommunication: A theoretical approach - Anolli and Reboul try to outline some general principles that can connect communication and miscommunication processes in a coherent theoretical perspective. In particular Anolli, in the Chapter l, sketches out the miscommunication as a chance theory (MaCHT). Reboul, expanding this view in Chapter 2, analyzes two well-known views of linguistic communication: the code model and the hypothesis of semantic transparency. In Section 2 - Pretending to communicate: Deception, seduction and equivocation - the attention of the authors moves to the analysis of deception, seduction and equivocation. In Chapter 3, Anolli, Balconi and Ciceri discuss a general model of deception - the Deceptive Miscommunication Theory (DeMiT) - that can explicate the local management of the deceptive message in its different expressions. Seductive interaction is the focus of Chapter 4, proposed by Ciceri. In the final chapter of this Section, Chapter 5, Fernandez-Dols, Carrera and Casado try to give an explanation of a relevant inconsistency: the difference between the patterns of representation of emotional facial expression in most of the available art., Section 3, Communicate to pretend: Irony and Humor, presents a framework for the analysis of Irony and Humor. Anolli, Infantino and Ciceri open this Section with a new theoretical perspective by proposing the fencing game (or irony situation) model. Attardo investigates the "performance" of humor. The last chapter of Section 3, Chapter 8, deals with the risks and rewards of irony communication. Gibbs and Colston argue that irony cannot be characterized simply as having positive or negative social impact, but can serve multiple communicative purposes, depending on the social context and aims of the conversational participants. The final Section is devoted to the analysis of Computer Mediated Communication, CMC. In Chapter 9, Riva outlines how CMC users are able to make order and create relationships out of the miscommunication processes typical of this medium. In Chapter 10, Mantovani addresses the effects of CMC on the development of interpersonal attraction. The last chapter, Chapter 11, focuses on the concealment in self-presentation, typical of CMC