International Journal of Language & Linguistics

Complementary Cognitive and Social Perspectives in the Study of False Memory in Reading and Writing
Onici Claro Flôres, Rosane Maria Cardoso, Lucilene Bender de Sousa

Abstract
This paper aims to discuss the interdisciplinary nature of memory research, exploring how cognitive and social approaches can be complementary in the study of memory, reading, and writing. We discuss two different phenomena to state our hypothesis: thematic distortions of reading texts and testimonial literature, and writing process about authoritarianism, social violence, and destruction. At the beginning, we introduce reading and memory in cognitive and social perspectives. After that, we explain implicit false memories and social memory. Finally, we suggest that to (re)construct social life it is necessary to compare different individual memories about it taking conclusions through the confrontation of various versions. In this way, remembering what happens is also a social matter, not an individual one, exclusively. To conclude, we propose that strong false memories that affect individual’s reasoning may result in text theme distortions or elaborations of new versions for some social event.

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