When communication goes wrong: exploring the psychology and linguistics of miscommunication
- Submission status
- Open
- Submission deadline
We invite submissions dedicated to the interdisciplinary exploration of miscommunication — how, why and when it occurs, and what can be done to prevent or repair it.
Miscommunication can emerge in many forms — from misunderstandings in everyday dialogue to breakdowns in political discourse or organisational messaging. Despite our best efforts to be understood, communication often falters. Through this call, we aim to bring together research that uncovers the psychological and linguistic processes that underlie these failures and offer insights into strategies that can minimise them.
We welcome contributions from psychology, linguistics, communication studies, and related disciplines, especially those addressing one or more of the following themes:
- The role of social norms and expectations in shaping interpretation and communication
- Audience design and speaker-listener coordination
- Violations or misapplications of Gricean maxims and other pragmatic principles
- Pluralistic ignorance and its role in collective misunderstandings
- Responsibility attribution in communication breakdowns—who is blamed, and why?
- Collaborative dialogue and its vulnerabilities to miscommunication
- Listener and audience contributions to misinterpretation
- Contextual factors that amplify or buffer against miscommunication (e.g. cultural, political, corporate settings)
- Strategies for achieving clarity, from lexical choice to structural rephrasing
- Techniques for minimising miscommunication in high-stakes environments (e.g. healthcare, law, education)
We particularly invite empirical work (qualitative or quantitative), theoretical models, and interdisciplinary perspectives that deepen understanding of how miscommunication unfolds and how it can be addressed.
Please note: This collection does not cover intentional misrepresentation, such as disinformation or misinformation campaigns, but rather focuses on unintentional misunderstandings.
