BriefReviewontheRelevanceTheory

龚腾龙 阿勒腾

【Abstract】Relevance theory has had an impact on the study in various disciplines including linguistics，literature and so on. This paper gives a brief review of the relevance theory and two principles of relevance.

【Key words】relevance theory； cognitive principle； communicative principle.

1. Introduction

Relevance theory has been widely accepted and has had an impact on the study in various disciplines，psychology and philosophy since the publication of the book Relevance： Communication and Cognition in1986. In the book，Sperber and Wilson claim that the principles governing inferential communication have their source in some basic facts about human cognition： humans typically pay attention to the most relevant phenomena available to them，construct the most relevant representation of these phenomena，and process these representation in a context that maximize their relevance.

2. Definition of relevance

Sperber and Wilson （1986） point out that relevance is compatible with human psychology. Thus human cognition is relevance-oriented. Each utterance has different degree of relevance when people communicate and begin to demand the hearers attention and create an expectation of relevance. People only pay attention to relevance that best meets their expectation of utterance and deal with the information that they are closely related. They distinguish related information from irrelevant one，and more relevant information from less relevant one. The relevance ensures the hearer to make a reasonable inference in order to reach a correct understanding of what is said. In their book Relevance： Communication and Cognition，Sperber and Wilson adopt two extent-conditions to define relevance：

Extent condition 1： an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that its contextual effects in this context are largeExtent condition 2： an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that the effort required to process it in this context is small.（Sperber &.Wilson，1995： 125）

Therefore，relevance is defined in terms of contextual effect and processing effort.

3.Two Principles of relevance

Two basic principles are proposed by Sperber and Wilson （1995）： Cognitive Principle and Communicative Principle of Relevance. Cognitive Principle is connected with human cognition while Communicative Principle is related to communication. Every aspect of cognition and communication is governed by the search for relevance. These two principles and related concepts will be presented in the following subsections.

3.1 Cognitive Principle.In relevance theory，the search for relevance is considered to be fundamental feature of human cognition. People have an automatic trend to maximize relevance and make the most efficient use of the perceptual mechanisms，the memory retrieval mechanisms，and the inferential mechanisms. In the Cognitive Principle of Relevance （Sperber &.Wilson，1995： 260），this general trend is described as：

Cognitive Principle of Relevance： Human cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance.

When communication is successful，both parties of communication explicitly express their intention and understood each other. However，intention can only be worked out from what the speaker has uttered and it will be hard for the hearer to determine whether or not his judgment conforms to the speakers intention. Different hearers depend on their cognitive environments and handle the speech in different ways. Therefore，utterance interpretation is a fallible process of hypothesis formation and evaluation. There is no guarantee that the interpretation that meets the hearers expectation of relevance will be fully adequate. Relevance is only an essential condition for successful communication. As is defined by the two variables，an assumption is relevant to an individual if it has positive cognitive effects and the effort required to process it is small. Simply speaking，to communicate successfully ，sufficient contextual effect can be obtained by both the speaker and the hearer can achieve without unjustifiable processing effort. In the following subsection，two key concepts （context and mutual manifestness） related to the cognitive principle are introduced.

3.1.1 Context.The real meaning of an utterance is dependent on its semantic content as well as on the context in which it is interpreted. If without being processed in a specific context in communication，no inference can be derived from the stimulation of the speaker

In pragmatic analysis，as a general practice，context for the understanding of a given utterance is predetermined before relevance theory. This assumption is challenged by Sperber and Wilson，who argue that context is not given but chosen. They claim that context is a psychological construct，including co-text and physical context and also including individual knowledge such as given information assumptions，beliefs and cognitive abilities. Thus their definition of context is following：

A context is a psychological construct，a subset of the hearers assumptions about the world. …A context… is not limited to information about the immediate physical environment or the immediately preceding utterances： expectations about future，scientific hypotheses or religious beliefs，anecdotal memories，general cultural assumptions，beliefs about the mental state of the speaker，may all play a role in interpretation. （Sperber &.Wilson，1995： 15，16）

Sperber &.Wilson points out that in the process of communication context should be dynamic because communication itself is a dynamic process. The entire communications is a demonstration of the set of assumptions. Context is assumed to contain background information，assumptions derived in previous process. For each stimulus in verbal communication，it is possible that many different sets of assumptions from a variety of sources are selected as context. However，it doesnt mean that the contexts constructed arbitrarily. Sperber and Wilson claim that utterance interpretation is context-dependent in verbal communication. A specific context is selected under the guidance of optimal relevance. Therefore，the construction of a context is an important part of the process of utterance interpretation.

3.1.2 Mutual manifestness.If communicators want to choose appropriate assumptions from the vast cognitive environments in communication，they just select the mutual manifest part which becomes their common cognitive environments. Moreover，it is the essential foundation of human communication and plays an important role in utterance understanding. Sperber and Wilson then put forward the concept of mutual manifestoes and claim that it is the prerequisite for utterance understanding.

Mutual manifestoes means to be perceptible，or inferable （Sperber &.Wilson，1995：39）. To say something is manifest to someone means that he is able to perceive or infer it. To put it another way，he can possibly be aware of it. Sperber and Wilson point out that “a fact is manifest to an individual at a given time if and only if he is capable at that time of representing it mentally and accepting its representation as true or probably true. And a cognitive environment of an individual is a set of facts that are manifest to him” （1995： 39）. Mutual manifestness allows us to communicate smoothly with each persons cognitive environment and is linked with mutual cognitive environment. The definition of mutual manifestness is given as the following：

In a mutual cognitive environment，for every manifest assumption，the fact that it is manifest to the people who share this environment is itself manifest. In other words，in a mutual cognitive environment，every manifest assumption is what we will call mutually manifest （Sperber &. Wilson1995： 41-42）.

The concept of mutual manifestoes is weaker than what is known or expected in practice. According to the concept of mutual manifestness，communication is the process of asymmetry in which the speaker should make correct assumptions about the codes and contextual information that the hearer will get in the comprehension process. The speaker is responsible for avoiding misunderstanding in order that all the hearers can use whatever code and contextual information that are easily accessible.

3.2 Communicative Principle.An ostensive stimulus is used to draw an hearers attention and focus it on the speakers meaning in human communication. A hearer will only pay attention to a relevant stimulus if he is given the universal trend to maximize relevance. Sperber and Wilson （1995： 260） claim that by generating an ostensive stimulus，therefore the speaker encourages the hearer to presume that it is irrelevant enough to be worth processing. This is the foundation for the Communicative Principle of Relevance：

Communicative Principle of Relevance： Every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance. （Sperber and Wilson 1995： 260）

We can find from the definition that Communicative Principle of Relevance is about the optimal relevance. People should seek for the optimal relevance in daily communication. This inferential theory of communication is very important claim of relevance theory.

3.2.1 Optimal relevance.The key to relevance-theoretic pragmatics is the concept of optimal relevance. The core element of successful communication is to seek for optimal relevance. In communication，both the speaker and the hearer can get enough contextual effect without unreasonable processing effort. The definition of optimal relevance is given by Sperber and Wilson as the following：Presumption of Optimal Relevance： An utterance，on a given interpretation，is optimally relevant if and only if：

（a）The ostensive stimulus is relevant enough for it to be worth the addressees effort to process it；（b）The ostensive stimulus is the most relevant one compatible with thecommunicators abilities and preferences. （Sperber&.Wilson，1995：275）

If an utterance achieves adequate contextual effects which is worthy of the hearers attention，and it puts the hearer to no gratuitous processing effort in order to achieve those effects，then on a given occasion，an utterance is optimally relevant.

3.2.2 Ostensive-inferential communication.Sperber and Wilson propose an ostensive-inferential model of communication in their book Relevance： Communication and Cognition （1995）. This model combines the code model and the inferential model. The code model had dominated in all theories of communications for a long time. In the classical code model，a communicator encodes his intended message into signal，then the audience decoded it using the identical copy of code. This view is challenged by Grice and then he proposes the inferential model. In this model，evidence of her connotation is offered by a speaker to convey a certain meaning，which is inferred by the hearer with the help of the evidence provided.Grice claims “Communication is successful not when hearers recognize the linguistic meaning of the utterance，but when they infer the speakers ‘meaning from it” （Sperber &. Wilson 1995： 23）. Sperber and Wilson are in favor of Grices inferential model，but they still believe that the understanding will inevitably involve decoding. According to Sperber and Wilson，these two models are not inconsistent with，and they can be combined in various ways. They point out that both coding and inferential processes are involved in language processing. Sperber and Wilson propose the ostensive-inferential model for communication and give the definition of ostensive-inferential communication as the following：

The communicator produces a stimulus which makes it mutually manifest to communicator and audience that the communicator intends，by means of this stimulus，to make manifest or more manifest to the audience a set of assumption. （Sperber &.Wilson，1995： 63）

Ostension provides two layers of information. In the first layer，the speaker wishes to give the hearer information or communicate a series of assumptions. In the second layer，the speaker expects the hearer to be aware of his wish to communicate this set of assumptions，which is technically known as ostension. And the process of the audience reasoning and inferring to recognize the intension of the communicator is inference.

Sperber and Wilson regard ostensive and inferential communication as the same process，but seen from two different angles： the speaker who is involved in ostension，shows manifest his informative intention，and the hearer who is involved in inference，infer the speakers intention from the evidence provided （Sperber&.Wilson，1995：54）. In order o make a communication successful，for the speaker，he must produce a stimulus to draw the hearers attention and guarantee the stimuluss optimal relevance； on the part of the hearer，he is responsible for finding the speakers intension. The main significance of ostensive communication is that it bears a guarantee of relevance. 4.Conclusion

Relevance Theory （RT） proposed by D. Sperber and D. Wilson is known as a theory of pragmatics，which has developed into the extent of being a sub-branch of pragmatics，cognitive pragmatics. Its potential power in interpreting the natural language lights up interdisciplinary studies among pragmatics，psycholinguistics and cognitive science.

References：

[1]Sperber，Dan & Wilson，Deirdre.Relevance：Communication and Cognition.Massachusetts：Harvard University Press，1986.

[2]藍纯.认知语言学与隐喻研究.北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2005：122-124.

[3]苗兴伟.关联理论与认知语境.外语学刊，1997（4）.