Misunderstanding and Language Comprehension

This paper studies the relationship between misunderstanding and language comprehension. A misunderstanding is the communicatee's choice of an interpretation for an utterance which is not the one intended by the communicator. This faulty interpretation can be ascribed to the inconsistencies that occur during the comprehension of a linguistic message and to the interference of emotions with that comprehension. This paper tries to identify these inconsistencies and to explain their relationship to misunderstanding. It also tries to find evidence of the interference of emotions with language comprehension and its contribution to misunderstanding.