The practical impact of emotional background memory

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In our daily life we ​​constantly interact with each other. We do this through linguistic and non-linguistic means such as facial expressions, gestures and body movements. Undoubtedly, to build a successful society and peaceful relations with each other, it is necessary not to misinterpret any information encoded by the speaker. As a matter of fact, people do not always communicate with each other in a clear way, and it often becomes a real challenge to understand the speaker’s implicit meaning or his hidden thoughts and intentions, which may not be clearly expressed in his speech. .

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In fact, when communicating with each other, we usually neglect to mention a great deal of information that we certainly know, or at least assume that all our interlocutors know. As Verschueren (1999) says, we only have to imagine what a person would have to say to explain himself in a completely clear linguistic way.

The world of unspoken information carried by speech is called speech Background Information, which is also referred to as common knowledge or common ground, as it is assumed to be shared between the interlocutors. Moreover, since such assumptions involve recursive and reciprocal implicatures –I know you know that I knowetc. – the term Mutual knowledge It is also often used (Verschueren 1999:26). In other words, it is the communicative information shared by speakers that makes mutual understanding possible through the communication process.

Sometimes, even while communicating with each other in an implicit way, people manage to understand each other; This is possible because of this basic information that is shared between the speaker and the listener. Verschueren (1999) states that whatever term is used, the implicit meaning it covers is not a fixed entity, but can be shaped and reshaped in the context of linguistic action and interaction. In fact, the impossibility of complete clarity and the need to explain various aspects of common background information to achieve complete understanding of any instance of language use are widespread and difficult processes.

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Our human nature includes a rich set of factors that shape our overall behavior. Being a specific form of social behavior, speech depends on a number of basic features that form the general framework of the communicative context. Speakers’ prior emotional experience is also part of their mutually shared background knowledge, which determines their choice of language statements on a given occasion of a speech event. The problem can be viewed from a practical perspective, taking into account the essence of higher cognitive processes, which ensure a better understanding of the multifaceted nature of emotions.

Furthermore, when we think about the ways in which we use language, we think of face-to-face conversations, telephone conversations, reading and writing, and even talking to ourselves. These are the arenas of language use, that is, the theaters of action in which people do things through language. But what exactly? We are They do with language? What are their goals and intentions? By what processes do they achieve these goals? For one person to understand another, there must be some kind of “common ground” of knowledge between them. This common ground from their previous conversations, their immediate surroundings, and their common cultural/educational/personal background, as well as their knowledge of their own feelings, beliefs, dreams, and desires, is of paramount importance in building mutual understanding.

suggestion a He is Mutual knowledge Between a set of agents if each agent knows that: a. Mutual knowledge in itself means nothing about what, if anything, anyone attributes to anyone else. Suppose each student arrives for a class meeting knowing that the teacher will be late. The teacher’s tardiness is mutual knowledge, but each student may think that she alone knows that the teacher will be late. However, if a student explicitly says, “Peter told me he’s going to be late again,” then every student knows that every student knows that the teacher will be late; Every student knows that every student knows that every student knows that the teacher will be late, and so on ad infinitum.

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It follows from the above that if we want to create a positive atmosphere in which every individual is valued in the process of communicative interaction, we must also base our assumptions on basic information so that we can discover the unspoken thoughts and feelings of the interlocutors.

References

Verschueren, S. (1999). Understanding pragmatism. London, New York: Arnold.

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