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Criterion of consistency with the principle of relevance

An utterance, on a given interpretation, is consistent with the principle of relevance if and only if the speaker might rationally have expected it to be optimally relevant to the hearer on that interpretation.

Vague as this criterion may sound, it makes one important prediction not matched by other theories. This follows from clause (b) of the definition of optimal relevance and its consequence that the first interpretation tested and found consistent with the principle of relevance is the only interpretation consistent with the principle of relevance. Let us assume that, in interpreting an utterance, the hearer starts with a small initial context left over, say, from his processing of the previous utterance: he computes the contextual effects of the utterance in that initial context; if these are not enough to make the utterance worth his attention, he expands the context, obtaining further effects, and repeats the process until he has enough effects to make the utterance optimally relevant in a way the speaker could manifestly have foreseen. At that point, he has an interpretation consistent with the principle of relevance, and it follows that he should stop; or, at least, he is entitled to go on on his own account, but is not entitled to assume that the speaker intended to communicate anything more. In other words, all the hearer is entitled to impute as part of the intended interpretation is the minimal (i.e. smallest, most accessible) context and contextual effects that would be enough to make the utterance worth his attention. Thus, the interpretation process has an inbuilt stopping place.

6. Some consequences of relevance theory

In this section, I will look at some practical applications of relevance theory to the analysis of a variety of examples. These will be grouped under two headings, to illustrate the two main strategies of analysis that relevance theory provides. Under the first heading fall analyses hinging on the assumption that the first interpretation tested and found consistent with the principle of relevance is the only interpretation consistent with the principle of relevance; under the second heading fall analyses hinging on the assumption that any extra processing effort demanded will be offset by extra effects. Both strategies ultimately derive from clause (b) of the definition of optimal relevance, which excludes gratuitous demands on the hearer's processing effort.