Communicating with another person involves more than just conveying information via a linguistic channel. Often, what is said does not equal what is meant; also, utterances never contain all that is needed for understanding. Different conceptions lead to different associations with any concept used in discourse, and different levels of communication may suggest strong and subtle implications in ways that neither speaker nor listener are aware of. As a result communication can fail based on the peculiarities of each level of language, ranging from the auditory channel via semantic structure to pragmatic implicature.

In this course, we will approach the question why misunderstandings arise from a range of perspectives, starting from discussing basic literature on the topic but moving on to analysing instances of natural discourse. Students will be encouraged to develop and use methods of collecting data creatively, and they will be introduced to basic methods of qualitative analysis in order to work out systematic aspects crucial to (mis)communication.

We will consider how this kind of linguistic knowledge can be used in the classroom as well as for consulting, i.e., to give advice to non-linguists struggling with communication problems.