RELEVANCE

THEORY
Presented By:
1. Mufidatun Nuriftitahiyah
2. Zandra Yolanda d.P
 Introduction:
Two Basic Principles

1) Cognitive Principle (Human Cognition)

2) Communicative Principle (What utterances create)

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Origins Of Relevance Theory
Grice claims about that the important thing about most
human communication is

Expression Recognition

Coding
1. Classical Code Model
Decoding

2. An Inferential Model

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Utterance
• Definition:

“A linguistic coded piece of evidence”

(Sperber & Wilson, 2002)

• Utterances automatically create expectations which gear the

hearer.

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 Relevance And
Cognition
Relevance can be considered from two points of view:

• Intuitively
• In relevance-theoretic terms

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1. What Sort Of Things May Be Relevant?

Intuitively, relevance is a potential property not only of

utterances and other observable phenomena, but of thoughts,
memories and conclusions of inferences.
According to relevance theory, any external stimulus or
internal representation which provides an input to cognitive processes
may be relevant to an individual at some time.

2. When Is An Input Relevant?

According to intuitively, When it connects with background

information to yield conclusions that matter, by answering a question,
settling a doubt, confirming a suspicion, correcting a mistaken
impression.
According to relevance theory, When its processing in a
context of available assumptions yield a positive cognitive effect.
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Cognitive Effects

• Contextual:
Source must be, altogether:
1) the input itself

2) the context

• Other types:
– Revision of assumptions

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3. What Makes The Input Said Is RELEVAN?

According to relevance theory, an input is RELEVANT to an

individual when, and only when, its processing yields such positive
cognitive effects.
Intuitively, other things being equal, the more worthwhile
conclusions achieved by processing an input, the more relevant it will be.

4. What About Processing Effort?

Intuitively, the greater the effort of perception, memory and

inference required, the less rewarding the input will be to process, and
hence the less deserving of attention.
According to relevance theory, other things being equal, the
greater the PROCESSING EFFORT required, the less relevant the input will be.
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 Cognitive Principle

This principle states that human cognition tends to be geared to the

maximization of relevance.

• potentially relevant stimuli

• retrieval mechanisms

• inferential mechanisms

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 Relevance & Communication

Universal tendencies

1. On the side of the hearer:

• To choose the most relevant stimuli
2. On the side of the speaker:
• Attract attention
• Prompt contextual assumptions
• Point us towards an intended conclusion

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 Types Of Stimuli

According to Grice, inferential

communication is a matter of getting someone
to recognize our intentions.
It involves:
1. An informative intention
2. A communicative intention

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 Ostensive
Stimulus
An ostensive stimulus is designed to
attract an audience’s attention and focus it
on the communicator’s meaning.

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 Communicative Principle
“
“Every ostensive stimulus conveys
and creates a presumption of its
own optimal relevance”

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 Relevance & Comprehension

Non-verbal comprehension Verbal comprehension

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 Explicit Content

Since Grice, pragmatists have been continually

disregarding the explicit contents of utterances
in favor of the recovery of implicatures.

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The Comprehension Procedure

Relevance Theory, however, considers explicit content equally

inferential, and equally ruled by the Communicative Principle.

It states a series of sub-tasks in the process of comprehension:

a) Construct hypotheses about EXPLICATURES
b) Construct hypotheses about IMPLICATED PREMISES

c) Construct hypotheses about IMPLICATED CONCLUSIONS

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How Does This Process Work?

• It is not a sequential type of process.

• It is an all-at-once sort of mechanism.

• Hypotheses (of the three kinds) develop themselves against a

background of EXPECTATIONS or ANTICIPATORY
HYPOTHESES which might be revised during the very
process.
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Example :
– Peter: Has John paid back the money he owes you?
– Mary: No. He forgot to go to the bank.

Basic assumption : Mary’s answer WILL BE optimally relevant.

Anticipatory hypothesis : Her answer will give him the information he is
requesting
Hypothesis #1 : [‘bank’ = financial institution] + [‘He’ = John]
Hypothesis #2 : Forgetting to go to the bank could be a plausible
cause for not repaying.
OUR IMPLICATED PREMISE
Hypothesis #3 : John was unable to repay Mary BECAUSE
he forgot to go to the bank.
OUR IMPLICATED CONCLUSION
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 Reference

The Handbook of Pragmatics, Laurence R. Horn

and Gregory Ward, bv Blackwell Publishing I.td,
2004/2006

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END OF SLIDE

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