1、Chapter 1IntroductionDan Sperber Gazdar, 1979; Horn, 1973 , 1984, 1989, 1992; Levinson, 1983, 2000) stay relatively close to Grices formulation. Levinson (2000), for instance, defines three basic principles linked to three of Grices maxims (here in abridged form):Q-PrincipleSpeakers maxim: Do not pr
2、ovide a statement that is informationally weaker than your knowledge of the world allows.Recipient corollary: Take it that the speaker made the strongest statement consistent with what he knows.I-PrincipleSpeakers maxim: Produce the minimal linguistic information sufficient to achieve your communica
3、tional ends.Recipient corollary: Amplify the informational content of the speakers utterance, by finding the most specific interpretation, up to what you judge to be the speakers point.M-PrincipleSpeakers maxim: Indicate an abnormal, nonstereotypical situation by using marked expressions that contra
4、st with those you would use to describe the corresponding normal, stereotypical situations.Recipient corollary: What is said in an abnormal way indicates an abnormal situation.These principles provide heuristics for interpreting utterances. For instance, when Mary answers elliptically “some of them”
5、, she can be seen by Peter as producing the minimal linguistic information sufficient to achieve her communicational ends (following the I Principle), and this, together with the assumption that Mary obeyed the Gricean Maxim of relevance, justifies his amplifying the content of her utterance up to w
6、hat he judges to be her point (see Levinson 2000, 183-4). Moreover, the Q Principle justifies Peter in taking it that Mary made the strongest statement consistent with her knowledge, and that therefore it is not the case that she likes all of Fellinis films.Relevance theory (Bezuidenhout, 1997; Blak
7、emore, 1987, 2002; Blass, 1990; Carston, 2002; Carston Gutt, 1991 Ifantidou, 2001; Matsui, 2000; Moeschler, 1989; Noh, 2000; Papafragou, 2000; Pilkington 2000; Reboul, 1992; Rouchota Sperber Yus, 1997), though still based on Grices two foundational ideas, departs substantially from his account of th
8、e expectations that guide the comprehension process. For Griceans and neo-Griceans, these expectations derive from principles and maxims, i.e., rules of behaviour that speakers are expected to obey but may, on occasion, violate. Such violations may be unavoidable because of a clash of maxims or of p
9、rinciples, or they may be committed on purpose in order to indicate to the hearer some implicit meaning. Indeed, in the Gricean scheme, the implicit content of an utterance is typically inferred by the hearer in his effort to find an interpretation which preserves the assumption that the speaker is
10、obeying, if not all the maxims, at least the co-operative principle. For Relevance Theory, the very act of communicating raises in the intended audience precise and predictable expectations of relevance, which are enough on their own to guide the hearer towards the speakers meaning. Speakers may fai
11、l to be relevant, but they may not, if they are communicating at all (rather than, say, rehearsing a speech), produce utterances that do not convey a presumption of their own relevance.Whereas Grice invokes relevance (in his “maxim of relation”) without defining it at all, Relevance Theory starts fr
12、om a detailed account of relevance and its role in cognition. Relevance is defined as a property of inputs to cognitive processes. These inputs include external stimuli, which can be perceived and attended to, and mental representations, which can be stored, recalled, or used as premisses in inferen
13、ce. An input is relevant to an individual when it connects with background knowledge to yield new cognitive effects, for instance by answering a question, confirming a hypothesis, or correcting a mistake. Slightly more technically, cognitive effects are changes in the individuals set of assumptions
14、resulting from the processing of an input in a context of previously held assumptions. This processing may result in three types of cognitive effects: the derivation of new assumptions, the modification of the degree of strength of previously held assumptions, or the deletion of previously held assu
15、mptions. Relevance, i.e. the possibility of achieving such a cognitive effect, is what makes an input worth processing. Everything else being equal, inputs which yield greater cognitive effects are more relevant and more worth processing. For instance, being told by the doctor “you have the flu” is
16、likely to carry more cognitive effects and therefore be more relevant than being told “you are ill.” In processing an input, mental effort is expended. Everything else being equal, relevant inputs involving a smaller processing effort are more relevant and more worth processing. For instance, being
17、told “you have the flu” is likely to be more relevant than being told “you have a disease spelled with the sixth, the twelth, and the twenty-first letter of the alphabet” because the first of these two statements would yield the same cognitive effects as th second for much less processing effort. Re
18、levance is a thus matter of degree and varies with two factors, positively with cognitive effect, and inversely with processing effort. Relevance Theory develops two general claims or “principles” about the role of relevance in cognition and in communication:Cognitive Principle of Relevance: Human c
19、ognition tends to be geared to the maximisation of relevanceCommunicative Principle of Relevance: Every act of communication conveys a presumption of its own optimal relevanceAs we have already mentioned, these two principles of relevance are descriptive and not normative (unlike the principles and
20、maxims of Gricean and neo-Gricean pragmatists). The first, Cognitive Principle of Relevance yields a variety of predictions regarding human cognitive processes. It predicts that our perceptual mechanisms tend spontaneously to pick out potentially relevant stimuli, our retrieval mechanisms tend spont
21、aneously to activate potentially relevant assumptions, and our inferential mechanisms tend spontaneously to process them in the most productive way. This principle, moreover, has essential implications for human communication processes. In order to communicate, the communicator needs her audiences a
22、ttention. If, as claimed by the Cognitive Principle of Relevance, attention tends automatically to go to what is most relevant at the time, then the success of communication depends on the audience taking the utterance to be relevant enough to be to be worthy of attention. Wanting her communication
23、to succeed, the communicator, by the very act of communicating, indicates that she wants her utterance to be seen as relevant by the audience, and this is what the Communicative Principle of Relevance states. According to Relevance Theory, the presumption of optimal relevance conveyed by every utter
24、ance is precise enough to ground a specific comprehension heuristic:Presumption of optimal relevance: (a) The utterance is relevant enough to be worth processing; (b) It is the most relevant one compatible with communicators abilities and preferences. Relevance-guided comprehension heuristic:(a) Fol
25、low a path of least effort in constructing an interpretation of the utterance (and in particular in resolving ambiguities and referential indeterminacies, in going beyond linguistic meaning, in computing implicatures, etc.).(b) Stop when your expectations of relevance are satisfied.For instance, whe
26、n Mary, in response to Peters question “Do you like Fellinis films?” utters “some of them,” she can be confident that, following a path of least effort, Peter will understand “them” to refer to Fellinis films (since this is the plural referent most prominent in his mind) and the whole utterance to b
27、e elliptical for “I like some of them” (since this is the resolution of the ellipsis closest to his expectations). The fact that there are films by Fellini that Mary likes is relevant enough to be worth Peters attention (as he indicated it would be by asking the question). However, this does not yet fully satisfy Peters expectations of relevance: Mary was presumably able, and not reluctant, to tell him whether she liked all of Fellinis films, and that too would be of relevance to
