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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson) holds that utterance interpretation is driven by optimal relevance to the hearer, not by cooperative maxims the speaker consciously intends to exploit.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Speakers demonstrably craft utterances to communicate specific cooperative intentions; relevance alone cannot explain deliberate deception or misdirection.
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    • 2.Optimal relevance is subjective and context-dependent, making it unfalsifiable and less predictive than testable Gricean maxim violations.
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    • 3.Relevance Theory underestimates social conventions and politeness strategies that shape interpretation independent of cognitive optimization.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Hearers successfully interpret ambiguous utterances without explicit knowledge of Gricean maxims, suggesting relevance-seeking operates pre-reflectively.
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    • 2.Relevance Theory explains non-literal language (irony, metaphor) better by focusing on cognitive effects rather than speaker intentions about conventions.
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    • 3.Cross-cultural communication succeeds despite different cooperative norms, indicating a universal relevance principle underlies interpretation.
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