Reviewed by Kanavillil Rajagopalan, State University at Campinas, Brazil

This book is a translation of Bruno G. Bara’s earlier work published in Italian and titled Pragmatica cognitiva: I processi mentali della comunicazione (Milan: Bollati Boringhieri, 1999).  The author’s starting premise is presented in the very opening sentence of the book: ‘Communication is a social activity that requires more than one participant for it to take place’ (1). It is both intentional and conscious. ‘The intention to communicate must be a conscious one: no unconscious intentions exist in communication…’ (ix). Communication is an all-encompassing term here. It covers both linguistic communication as well as nonlinguistic (or extralinguistic) types of communication. Thus, language in the sense of a code is neither necessary nor sufficient for there to be communication.

B proposes a theory of communication and seeks to formalize it with the help of logic and to validate it using experimental data (whether culled from existing literature or his own research). He further correlates it with findings from the neurosciences. For instance, as B explains, ‘… failure comes about either because the partner does not follow the inferential chain when he was meant to, or, conversely, because he follows the chain he was not supposed to, since the actor had proposed a nonstandard mode’ (171–72).

Crucial to B’s theoretical approach is a distinction he draws between standard communication, where all participants ‘consciously and intentionally cooperate to construct together the meaning of the interaction’ (1) and nonstandard communication (exemplified by deception, irony, and so forth). The latter is analyzed as a deviation from the former and the author offers possible solutions. In his analysis, B departs from a cognitive standpoint. He claims that his is not the point of view of an external observer; rather, it is that of the individual, presumably an insider.

The book is presented in six chapters entitled ‘Not just language: A taxonomy of communication’ (1–54), ‘Tools for communicating’ (55–92), ‘Behavior games and conversation games’ (93–130), ‘Generation and comprehension of communicative acts’ (131–70), ‘Nonstandard communication’ (171–202), and ‘Communicative competence’ (203–76).

The last chapter is ‘devoted to the evolution, development, and decay of communicative competence’ (203). B’s approach to the first is confessedly Darwinian-oriented, while his arguments regarding the second is experimental. In regards to the third topic, the decay of communicative competence, he attributes it tentatively to physiological reasons (e.g. old age) and pathological causes (e.g. brain injuries and Alzheimer’s disease). The book ends with a brief but thought-provoking section entitled ‘Silence’, in which the author distinguishes between three types of silence: noncommunicative silence, nondeliberate and aware silence, and intentionally communicative silence.