Relevance Theory

The definitive introduction to relevance theory, starting from the basics and covering all its key ideas.

Billy Clark (Author)

9780521702416, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 July 2013

420 pages, 21 b/w illus. 3 tables 60 exercises
24.6 x 17.3 x 2 cm, 0.84 kg

'A beautifully clear, insightful and entertaining overview of relevance theory, which takes readers from first principles to recent developments in a warm, witty and fair-minded way. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in how communication works.' Deirdre Wilson, University College London

Over the past twenty years, relevance theory has become a key area of study within semantics and pragmatics. In this comprehensive new textbook, Billy Clark introduces the key elements of the theory and how they interconnect. The book is divided into two parts - the first providing an overview of the essential machinery of the theory, and the second exploring how the original theory has been extended, applied and critically discussed. Clark offers a systematic framework for understanding the theory from the basics up, building a complete picture and providing the basis for advanced research across a range of topics. With this book, students will understand the fundamentals of relevance theory, its origins in the work of Grice, the relationship it has to other approaches, and its place within recent developments and debates.

Part I. Overview: 1. A first outline
2. Origins and alternatives: Grice, relevance theory and modern pragmatics
3. Principles of relevance
4. Explaining inferences
Part II. Details and Developments: 5. Explicature and implicature
6. Types of explicature
7. Types of implicature
8. Lexical pragmatics
9. Figurative language: metaphor
10. Figurative language: irony
11. Linguistic semantics
12. Conclusion: applications and recent developments
Appendix: key notions of relevance theory.

Subject Areas: Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Linguistics [CF]