Is relevance theory asocial?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.1998.11.12Keywords:
Teoría de la relevancia, Cortesía, Interacción verbal, Lingüística cognitiva, Comportamiento social, Relaciones sociales, ImperativoAbstract
This paper challenges the view that Sperber & Wilson's Relevance Theory is intrinsically asocial. To this effect, it is firstly shown how Relevance Theory provides a more satisfactory explanation of the 'politeness' of imperative sentences than Brown & Levinson's treatment. Secondly' supposed examples of the theory's inability to explain socially motivated instances of language use presented by O'Neill are examined and shown to be well within its explanatory power. Finally, a more general argument is presented. Recent insights from evolutionary psychology are drawn on in order to demonstrate how Sperber & Wilson's account of the way humans interpret utterances is able to accommodate a social dimension.Downloads
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Published
30-11-1998
How to Cite
Jary, Mark. 1998. “Is Relevance Theory Asocial?”. Alicante Journal of English Studies / Revista Alicantina De Estudios Ingleses, no. 11 (November):157-69. https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.1998.11.12.
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Copyright (c) 1998 Mark Jary
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.