Miscommunication: The Other of Communication or the Otherness of Communication?

Abstract

Unlike most studies of miscommunication, which understand it as the opposite other of communication, I reconceptualize it in this article as involving the otherness of communication. Using the resources of deconstruction, and taking into consideration the irreducible necessity of mediation through an other, I rethink communication without reducing its complexity. My rethinking is inspired by deconstructive readings of Austin's How to Do Things With Words and Lacan's Seminar on The Purloined Letter. In the end, I contend that miscommunication cannot be definitively separated from communication, indicating communication's differential makeup. Miscommunication uncannily resides in communication.