Theatricality and Cognitive Science: The Audience's Perception and Reception

Abstract

Cognitive science is a real umbrella term covering the various disciplines that investigate human communication and information processing: first of all cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, certain branches of linguistics and recently discourse analysis (used to describe the mechanisms of natural conversation as well as dramatic discourse, very long neglected). These various disciplines explore the psychological processes involved in the acquisition, organization, and use of knowledge. The debate between socio- and cognitive pragmaticists is still going on. The former are more interested in the inter-personal sphere, in the standards of social behavior, since in interactions linguistic (as well as other) behavior is often assessed socially. Conversely, for cognitive pragmaticists, more important than any social contract underlying interactions is the role played by personal beliefs, assumptions, inferences, and inner mental representations involved in the communicative event. Nevertheless, both share many common methods and basic views, and their specific concept of communication may help to define more convincingly the still quite vague notion of "theatricality." I would like here to attempt a first step toward understanding how theatrical language, as well as the audience's responses, are constrained and shaped by human information processing and communication, and how the various tools offered by cognitive science could be employed to analyze them in a relatively new way.