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Post-Gricean Developments

Post-Gricean Developments. Relevance Theory The Q-and R-principles. Introduction. Relevance theory is based on a few very simple assumptions: Every utterance has a variety of possible interpretations, all compatible with the information that is linguistically encoded.

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Post-Gricean Developments

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  1. Post-Gricean Developments Relevance Theory The Q-and R-principles

  2. Introduction • Relevance theory is based on a few very simple assumptions: • Every utterance has a variety of possible interpretations, all compatible with the information that is linguistically encoded. • Not all these interpretations occur to the hearer simultaneously; some of them take more effort to think up.

  3. (3) Hearers are equipped with a single, very general criterion for evaluating interpretations as they occur to them. This criterion is powerful enough to exclude all but at most a single interpretation, so that having found an interpretation that satisfies it. (D. Wilson, Relevance and Understanding)

  4. Definition of Relevance • Sperber and Wilson defined relevance as “Relationship between the assumption P and a set of contextual assumptions.” An assumption is relevant in a context and only if it has some contextual effect in the certain context. (Sperber, D & Wilson, D. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 1986:122)

  5. Sperber and Wilson also defined Relevance on Content Condition. • Content condition 1: an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that its contextual effect in this context are large. • Content condition 2: an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent the effort required to process it in this context is small. (Sperber, D & Wilson, D. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 1986:125)

  6. 语境效果 Contextual Effect 关联性Relevance 推理努力 Processing Effort

  7. Degree of Relevance • Sperber and Wilson regarded that the degree of relevance depends on two factors: contextual effect and effort required to process the utterance. • Relevance is a continuum, can be divided into maximally relevant, very relevant, weakly relevant and irrelevant.

  8. Maximally Relevant Very Relevant Weakly Relevant Irrelevant (1)A: How long did the concert last? B: Two hours and a half. (2)A: I am out of petrol. B: Here is garage around the corner. (3)A: Will you have some coffee? B: Coffee would keep me awake. (4)5 May 1881 was a sunny day in kabul. You are now reading a book. You are fast asleep.

  9. Principle of Relevance • Sperber and Wilson proposed Presumption of Optimal Relevance and Principle of Relevance.

  10. Presumption of optimal relevance • is meant: • The set of assumptions ﹛ Ⅰ ﹜which the • communicator intends to make manifest to the • addressee is relevant enough to make it worth • the addressee’s while to process the ostensive • stimulus. • (b) The ostensive stimulus is the most relevant one • the communicator could have used to communicate. • (Sperber&Wilson,1986)

  11. That is to say, of all the interpretations of the stimulus which confirm the presumption it is the first interpretation to occur to the addressee that is the one the communicator intended to convey. For example, the first interpretation of (a) to the hearer will usually be that George has a big domestic cat. e.g. : (a) George has a big cat. (b) George has a tiger, a lion, a jaguar, etc. (c) George has a tiger. (d) George has a tiger or a lion, I’ m not sure which. (e) George has a felid.

  12. Principle of Relevance • Every act of ostensive communication • communicates the presumption of its • own optimal relevance.” • 每一个明示交际行动，都传递一种假定：这种 • 行动本身具备最佳关联性。

  13. On the speaker’s side, communication should be seen as an act of making clear one’s intention to express something. This act is called ostensive act. The hearer just attempts to draw the inference from the speaker’s utterance. Thus a complete characterization of communication is that it is ostensive-inferential. And ”ostensive-communication”, or ”inferential communication”, is a shorthand.

  14. The Q- and R-principles • This is less reductionist, bipartite model. These two principles, developed by Laurence Horn. • The Q-principle is intended to invoke the first maxim of Grice’s Quantity, and the R-Principle the Relation maxim, so Horn proposes to reduce all the Grice’s maxims to two principles as follows:

  15. The Q-principle (Hearer-based) • MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION SUFFICIENT (Quantity¹) • SAY AS MUCH AS YOU CAN (given R) • The R-principle (Speaker-based) • MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION NECESSARY( Relation, Quantity²,Manner) • SAY NO MORE THAN YOU MUST (given Q) ¹

  16. The hearer-based Q-Principle is a sufficiency condition in the sense that Information provided is the most the speaker is able to. For example, (a) below implicates (b). • Some of my friends are linguists. • Not all of my friends are linguists.

  17. The R-principle, in contrast, encourages the hearer to infer that more is meant. e.g : Can you pass the salt?

  18. Conclusion • Relevance theory and Q- and R-Principle make contributions to pragmatics. • Grice’s theory has been revised and supplemented. • They expands the research area of the old pragmatics.

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