LINGUIST List 6.682

Sat 13 May 1995

Sum: Relevance and discourse

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1. , Summary of relevance and discourse
2. , Summary on Relevance and discourse
3. , Summary on Relevance theory

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Summary of responses on relevance and discourse:

Date sent Wed, 26 Apr 1995 10:05:11 +0200
>From moeschljuni2a.unige.ch (Jacques Moeschler)
Subject relevance and discourse
To GAGLIARDchiostro.univr.it

)Date Wed, 26 Apr 1995 09:59:35 +0200
)To: GAGLIARDCHIOSTOUNIVR.IT
)From moeschljuni2a.unige.ch (Jacques Moeschler)
)Subject relevance and discourse
)
)Hello,
)I received a forward mail from Dan Sperber about your query about
)references on relevance and discourse. I have been workind on discourse
)analysis for a couple of years, and tried to have a new look at discourse
)from relevance theory. Here are a couple of reference in English (I hope
)accessible):
)Moeschler, J. (1989), (<Pragmatic connectives, argumentative coherence, and
)relevance>>, Argumentation 3/3, 321-339.
)Moeschler, J. (1992), (<Foundations of dialogue analysis>>, in Stati, S. &
)Weigand, E. (eds.), Methodologie der Dialoganalyse, Tuebingen, Niemeyer,
)66-74.
)Moeschler, J. (1993), (<Relevance and conversation>>, Lingua 90, 149-171.
)Moeschler, J. (1994), (<How do we know that what we mean is understood ?
)Hypothesis and warranty of uptake in conversation>>, in Parret, H. (ed.),
)Pretending to communicate, Berlin, de Gruyter, 33-47.
)
)In French:
)Moeschler, J. (1990), (<Conversation, coherence et pertinence>>, dans B.
)Conein, M. de Fornel et L. Quere (eds.), Les formes de la conversation,
)vol. 1, Paris, CNET (Reseaux), 79-104..
)Moeschler, J. (1991), (<Conversation et inference pragmatique>>, in Stati
)S., Weigand, E. & Hundsnurscher F. (eds.), Dialoganalyse III. Referate der
)3. Arbeitstagung, Bologna 1990, Tuebingen, Niemeyer, 185-196.
)See also lots of workin papers in the Cahiers de Lingusitique francaise,
)University of geneva, Department of Linguistics:
)
)For a general view on pragmatics and relevance:
)
)Moeschler, J. & Reboul, A. (1994), Dictionnaire encyclopedique de
)pragmatique, Paris, Seuil, avril 1994.
)Moeschler J., Reboul A., Luscher J.M., Jayez J. (1994), Langage et
)pertinence. Reference temporelle, anaphore, connecteurs et metaphore,
)Nancy, PUN, 1994.
)
)I have been also writing on tenses and narratives, specially in the
)chapter 1 of Moeschler et al. (1994), Langage et pertinence. A student of
)mine has written a small monography on the imparfait tense, with special
)regard on narratives and relevance theory (tenses as devices for
)descriptive and/or interpretive use of langage). You can also look at
)Langages 112, december 1993 (Temps, reference et inference), and specially
)papers by Wilson & Sperber, Neil Smith and Moeschler. I have also a paper
)in preparation on evolving reference within narrative configurations.
)
)For any questions about relevance and fiction, ask Anne Reboul
)(reboulloria.fr).
)Best wishes
)Jacques Moeschler
)

Jacques Moeschler
Departement de linguistique
Universite de Geneve
3, rue de Candolle
CH-1211 Geneve 4
email: moeschljuni2a.unige.ch
fax: +41.22/328.52.13

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Summarry of received messages about relevance theory:

Date sent Sun, 23 Apr 1995 12:30:09 -0500 (EST)
>From Alex Eulenberg (aeulenbeindiana.edu)
To GAGLIARDchiostro.univr.it
Subject Relevance and discourse

) What's the state of the art of research into "Relevance" in discourse
) analysis? I'd like to deepen my knowledge of this subject. Any
) suggestion about Sperber&Wilson "Relevance Theory"? Particularly:
) bibliographic references about applied research on conversational
) analysis or narrative with Sperber&Wilson model.

How about Diane Blakemore's "Semantic Constraints on Relevance"?

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Summary of received messages about relevance theory:


To GAGLIARDchiostro.univr.it
>From Gisle.Anderseneng.uib.no (Gisle Andersen)
Subject Relevance theory
Date sent Wed, 26 Apr 1995 09:51:46 +0000

Dear Gagliard

) What's the state of the art of research into "Relevance" in discourse
)analysis? I'd like to deepen my knowledge of this subject. Any
)suggestion about Sperber&Wilson "Relevance Theory"? Particularly:
)bibliographic references about applied research on conversational
)analysis or narrative with Sperber&Wilson model.

Sorry if this is trivial to you:

I can truly recommend

 Sperber, D. and D. Wilson. 1986. Relevance: Communication and
Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.

It presents the relevance theoretic approach to the study of communication.
It includes also a long list of references to other important works in
relevance theory, eg Blass, Blakemore, Carston, S&W (and other references,
of course).

Relevance theory is a fairly recent approach to pragmatics. I had the
pleasure to attend a pragmatics course held by Deirdre Wilson at University
College London, and was facinated by the topic!

I consider pursuing a sociolinguistic approach to relevance theoretic
issues, and would appreciate a summary of your findings.

Cheers,
Gisle