Building true understanding via apparent miscommunication: A case study

The paper proposes an analysis of a sample text, which endeavours to show how apparent miscommunication is exploited by the speakers to build up towards an implicit mutual understanding between them. The conversation features in a short story in Hebrew, Sipur pashut ('A simple story') by the Nobel prize laureate, Shmuel Yossef Agnon. The theoretical approach underlying the analysis pertains to the distinction between individual speaker's meanings (I-level) on the one hand, and shared direction of the converstaion (We-level) on the other. It is shown how the very essence of miscommunication at I-level and of mutual understanding at We-level resides in a specific feature of the exchange, i.e. the validity of speakers' mutual assessments as to their respective familiarity with certain pieces of information.