DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2017.v05i12.029

Pages: 1960-1963

This paper concerned with the “basics” of “Relevance Theory”, attempts to examine the applicability of relevance theoretic approach in terms of semantic and pragmatic relations. The paper focuses on the complex relations between the “Relevance Theory” and dialogue-based interaction in language. Restoring “Relevance Theory” in discourse analysis is currently a widely used research paradigm which, in turn, gives rise to a strong new interest in relativity in all disciplines. The paper also attempts to differentiate between semantics and pragmatics of the two strands of cognitive processing employed in the understanding of utterances and sentences. These fall under two types: decoding and inference. In the first part of this article we examine the central conceptual properties of the “Relevance Theory”. In the second part, we illustrate the rationale and potential of the “Relevance Theory” in terms of semantics and pragmatics by empirically testing its capacity as well as adequacy to varying communication needs. Finally, third part draws attention to the perspective of the problem.