Gilbert Zaragoza

Mini-Paper #2 Misunderstandings
10.13.2003

Example 1: Corrected
Gilbert: Hey, Maneesh do you know what the word meja means? It’s a Yupik language
and it means hello.

Maneesh: (In a sarcastic and humorous tone) What, I’m a midget with a q-tip?

Katie: (Laughs along with Gilbert) No dork, meja. It means hello.

Maneesh: Oh I get it. Nah, I didn’t know that.

Example 2: Corrected
Jon: Hey Gilbert, you were in SLE?

Gilbert: (Engaged in another conversation and only hears LE) What, I don’t have fleas!

Jon: (Laughs) No, no I was asking if you were in SLE.

Gilbert: Oh yeah, I was.

Example 3: Uncorrected
Gilbert: (While watching a movie, a third person leaves the room to use the restroom.
The movie is paused) So are you a senior this year?

Tim: Yeah, but I don’t remember most of it u:h I remember I liked it though.

Gilbert: Uh, (realizes Tim misheard him as asking if had seen this movie before) u:m
yeah me too. So what are you studying?

Example 4: Uncorrected
Maneesh: So what did you get on the quiz?

Catherine: U:m I got u:h 5 out of 10.

Maneesh: What, you got 9 out of 10, that fantastic!

Catherine: U:h yeah it’s great.

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 Gilbert Zaragoza

Misunderstandings occur in everyday conversation for many reasons. Often these

errors in communication are left uncorrected for various reasons. In a communicative at

the speaker who is misunderstood id often responsible for resolving the error(s), but first

this miscommunication must be discovered. Take the first example as a sample case.

When Gilbert attempted to ask Maneesh about the word meja, he did not consider the

lack of reference Maneesh may have possessed. Gilbert spoke a word that Maneesh had

probably never heard before. This was then followed by another word, Yupik which was

foreign to Maneesh. In this example, Gilbert realized the misunderstanding when

Maneesh restated the question. The similarity in phonetics is obvious, and so it appears

that since Maneesh did not recognize the words spoken to him, he simply replaced them

with words he was familiar with, forming an intentionally ridiculous utterance. The

misunderstanding was, in a sense, clarified collaboratively. Katie, also recognizing

Maneesh’s error, repeated the information. This second attempt tom make Maneesh

understand is much more successful, which may have been the result of Katie’s use of the

word dork. This may have cued Maneesh to either get the words or duffer the

consequence of humiliation. Accordingly, Maneesh responds with the affirmation of his

understanding, however, his response does not demonstrate any concrete understanding.

The second example is much more simplistic in nature. The misunderstanding

occurs due to a lack of engagement from the participants. In this case, Gilbert acts as a

bystander within Jon’s conversation, despite being addressed directly as a side-

participant. As a result Gilbert does not hear the entire question and mistakenly takes

Jon’s question as an insult. Jon’s realizes the misunderstanding and clarifies it rather

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easily. In contrast to the misunderstanding in the last example, this one occurs not as the

result of a lack of common ground, obviously Gilbert was familiar with the term SLE.

Instead the error occurs because Gilbert was unable to hear the entire utterance, and so

only hearing the phonetic sound LE he replaced the s with and f to arrive at the word flea.

This example is another result of an addressee replacing words of an utterance, however

it occurs for a very different reason.

The third example arises from a simple miscommunication. Tim mishears Gilbert

completely and assumes since the question was posed during the movie that it must have

pertained to the movie. Gilbert, once realizing Tim had misheard him, decides to allow

the misunderstanding to pass unresolved for 2 reasons. First, by the time Gilbert had

realized Tim’s misunderstanding Tim had already provided quite a bit of information. If

Gilbert had chosen to clarify his question, it would dismiss Tim’s comments on the

movie as if they were unimportant. Since Gilbert and Tim had only met that day and had

little to talk about, Gilbert did not want to dismiss any dialogue between them. This leads

to the second reason, by allowing Tim’s comment to stand, Gilbert is able to establish

some common ground, namely that they both think the movie is good. In the final

misunderstanding, Catherine’s motivation seems to be pride. She chooses not to clarify

the miscommunication because she would simultaneously be asserting her

disappointment in her test score. Additionally, Maneesh’s excitement about her test score

made it more difficult for Catherine to respond negatively. Catherine in doing this is

being self-serving by using the miscommunication to her advantage. Had Maneesh

mistakenly heard that Catherine received 1 out of 10, she would have been more likely to

correct the error.