Stavros Assimakopoulos. Relevance theory and the domain of linguistic pragmatics

In lieu of a presentation, I will be sharing with you some ideas that I have been considering in relation to the place of relevance theory – and its associated account of utterance comprehension – within the domain of linguistic pragmatics, in the hope that this will lead to an open discussion about the remit (and perhaps limits) of the framework in this vein. More specifically, I will focus on the distinction between comprehension and interpretation and its implications for the study of the territory beyond the communicator’s intended import. On this basis, I will then turn to the thorny question of what – if anything – an account of cognitive pragmatics can tell us about the very nature of human language and the evolution of externalised languages into efficient semiotic systems that underlie communication.