Relevance Theory in Cognitive Context
Xiujuan Chai · 2004
In the perspective of cognitive science, Sperber and Wison put forward relevance theory, which leads to a new focus in pr- agmatics. Firstly, this essay gives an introduction to the main viewpoints of relevance theory, and points out relevance inference cannot surely be identical with speakers′ intention though the theory can effectively deal with provisional inference, and the concept of ′rel- evance′ can only be defined boundlessly in the relationship between pure expression and context. Then it centers upon cognitive cont- exts, and holds that speakers and hearers′ cognitive contextual assumptions interact on each other in communication. Finally,relevan- ce theory is compared with Gricean Theory.