02 s&w relevance

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Relevance Theory

Game Theoretic Pragmatics:

Introduction to Pragmatic Topics

Roland MuhlenberndMichael FrankeJason Quinley

SoSe 10

Roland Muhlenbernd Michael Franke Jason Quinley Game Theoretic Pragmatics: Introduction to Pragmatic Topics


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Table of Content

1 Relevance Theory



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Sperber & Wilsons Relevance Theory

Criticism of the Gricean program

It is based upon a cooperative principle, but cooperation isnot essential for communication

It focuses on pragmatic processes that contribute toimplicatures rather than on explicit, truth-conditional content

It considers maxim violation in utterance interpretation

It treats figurative utterances as deviations from a maxim orconvention of truthfulness

Relevance theorists share Grices intuition that utterances raiseexpectations of relevance...



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Relevance of inputs

An input is relevant to an individual when its processing in acontext of available assumptions yields a positive cognitive effect.

A positive cognitive effect is measured by contextualimplications.

A proposition pis relevant in context C, ifphas at least onecontextual implication in C.

A proposition phas a contextual implication q in C iff

1 C+pq

2 p q, C q

Example 1

A: Do you want to have some coffee?B: Coffee would keep me awake.


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Relevance of an input to an individual

1 Other things being equal, the greater the positive cognitive

effects achieved by processing an input, the greater therelevance of the input to the individual at that time.

2 Other things being equal, the greater the processing effortexpended, the lower the relevance of the input to theindividual at that time.


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Example 2

Context: Mary dislikes meat and is allergic to chicken. She ringsher dinner party host to find out what is on the menu.

1 We are serving meat.2 We are serving chicken.

3 Either we are serving chicken or 32 is not 9.

(2) is more relevant than (1) for reasons of cognitive effects.(2) is more relevant than (3) for reason of processing effort.


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Comparison of two or more relevant propositions p, p regardingtheir relevance:

1 O.t.b.e. pis more relevant in C than p

, ifC+phas morecontextual implications.

2 O.t.b.e. pis less relevant in C than p, if more computationalsteps are necessary to obtain the contextual implications.


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Optimal RelevanceAn ostensive stimulus (proposition) is optimally relevant to anaudience iff:

1 It is relevant enough to be worth the audiences processing

effort;2 It is the most relevant one compatible with communicators

abilities and preferences.

Example 3

A: I am out of petrol.B: There is a garage.There is a garage round the corner. (Its notclosed.)


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Problems in S&Ws Relevance-TheoryThe number of contextual implications is infinite(ifC+pq, then r :C+pq r)

Every proposition which is not entailed by context C is

relevant.Assume a arbitrary sentence pwith C pand qwith CqFurthermore assume that p q.Then p is relevant for C, because C+pp q, butp p qand C p q

This means e.g. that the sentence Game TheoreticPragmatics is cool. is relevant for every possible contextwhere this proposition isnt established.


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Sperber and Wilson give an alternative to the Griceanprogram that centers on the relevance of a statement as thesalient variable to deduce implicature.

Further, they give criteria for comparing the relevance of twostatements in terms of their cognitive effect and processingeffort.

What we now need is a heuristic for determining relevance

that aligns with our intuitions and presents a tractable model.


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