Relevance Theory

Relevance Theory recasts pragmatics around a single cognitive principle: human communication exploits the tendency of minds to maximize relevance.

Definition

Relevance Theory is a pragmatic framework on which utterance interpretation is guided by the presumption that an utterance is the most relevant one the speaker could have produced, balancing cognitive effects against processing effort.

Scope

This topic covers Sperber and Wilson's cognitively grounded alternative to the Gricean maxims. It treats the definition of relevance as a trade-off between cognitive effects and processing effort, the Cognitive and Communicative Principles of Relevance, ostensive-inferential communication, and the distinction between explicature (pragmatically enriched explicit content) and implicature. It also covers Carston's development of the explicature notion and the broader claim that much of what is communicated is pragmatically inferred even at the level of explicit content.

Core questions

• What makes one interpretation more relevant than another?
• How does the search for relevance guide comprehension?
• What is the distinction between explicature and implicature?
• How does Relevance Theory differ from and improve on the Gricean maxims?

Key concepts

• cognitive effects vs. processing effort
• Cognitive Principle of Relevance
• Communicative Principle of Relevance
• ostensive-inferential communication
• explicature vs. implicature
• free enrichment

Key theories

Principles of Relevance

The Cognitive Principle holds that cognition tends to maximize relevance; the Communicative Principle holds that every ostensive act communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance, which drives interpretation.

Explicature and pragmatic enrichment

Much of the explicitly communicated content (the explicature) is pragmatically derived through processes like disambiguation, reference assignment, and free enrichment, so pragmatics intrudes into what is said.

History

Sperber and Wilson's Relevance (1986, revised 1995) proposed replacing Grice's several maxims with a single relevance-based account anchored in cognitive science. The framework was extended by Carston and others, particularly through the notion of explicature, and remains a leading rival to neo-Gricean pragmatics.

Debates

Relevance Theory vs. neo-Gricean pragmatics

Whether a single relevance-based principle better explains utterance interpretation than a small set of neo-Gricean principles, and how much pragmatic inference contributes to explicit (truth-conditional) content.

Key figures

• Dan Sperber
• Deirdre Wilson
• Robyn Carston

Seminal works

• sperberwilson1995
• carston2002

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between an explicature and an implicature in Relevance Theory?

An explicature is a pragmatically enriched development of the literally encoded content (filling in reference, disambiguation, and other gaps), whereas an implicature is a separate proposition the hearer infers; Relevance Theory holds that comprehension yields both, guided by the search for optimal relevance.