RelevanceTheory.docVIP

Brief Introduction to Relevance Theory Formally proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson in their book Relevance: Communication and Cognition in 1986, relevance theory, intended to improve Gricean maxims by reducing redundant maxims to one single principle, has arisen heated discussions for years since it was first proposed. This presentation, accordingly, will give a brief introduction to relevance theory, its origin, its core notions, its main principles, and its current assessment, the significant contributions it has made to pragmatics and the limitations that needed to be overcome in future study. Relevance Theory: its communicative view As for the definition of language, most linguists tend to regard language as a grammar-governed representational system used for communication. Therefore, language is to express and explain meaning, and the basic function of language is to communicate. However, Sperber and Wilson believe that although language can be used for communicative purpose, its communicative function has not revealed the essential features of language. In their opinion, human activities involved language is in essence for cognition. Cognition is to absorb information, to obtain the knowledge. So the basic function of language is to retrieve and process information. Thus relevance theory regard communicative activities, verbal or nonverbal, as cognitive activities. The intention of speaker can be perceived by the audience because of the shared cognitive environment. The success of communication will depend on the manifestness and mutual manifestness of each others cognitive environment. Human cognition tends to be geared to the principle of relevance, and the comprehension of utterances follow ostensive-inferential model. Revision of Two models of Communication: Code model Inferential model Code model From Aristotle through to modern semiotics initiated by Saussure, all theories of communication was based on a single model, which we will call t